By Habib Muhammad Bako
ABUJA: What apparently looks laughable does not necessarily limit to jokes and mockery. Sometimes one cry on what is supposed to make him or her laugh.
A typical example is the “Nigerian Graduates” who wear the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) uniform around but do not know the meaning of what is inscribed on the shirt. This indeed is a shame to our nation’s educational system.
No country can rise above the level of its citizen’s thinking, judgment, knowledge, education and ability. For acclaimed graduates of Nigeria tertiary institutions to say ‘NYSC’ means Nigerian Youth Service Commission instead of National Youth Service Corp signifies the degree of our educated ignorant people.
This is a symptom of a systematic failure arising from family, school and the government. When certificates are valued more than capacity /ability to deliver or solve problems, one should expect a demand push to acquire certificate by all means available.
It is therefore incumbent upon us to ponder the mysteries and appreciate the reality surrounding this unfortunate situation. As a nation that earnestly yarns for growth and development, both family and government must give priority to education.
The family should pay keen attention towards their children/wards at an earlier stage of their educational pursuit as well as provoke their thinking faculties, challenge their perception and trigger their judgment and conception of both myth and reality.
For the government, the time is now to subject graduating students to test in order to prove their ability as this will prick their curiosity on current affairs. This can be conducted by an external body such as the Universities Commission or any organisation mandated to test students at exit point.
Anyone who fails the test should not be enrolled in the NYSC scheme. Also government should strive towards proper funding of existing universities so as to attain optimal standards at affordable cost to both prospective and existing students.
Indeed, issues like these makes a sensible person cry for his/her nation because if the situation is not arrested, the country will sink into abyss penury.
