How The Lives Of Nigeria's Youths Are Being Wasted Through Education


Happy new year everyone!!


Sorry wonderful people that its being a long time that I have updated this thread. I will be starting from where I stopped in the last update. In the last update I listed some points as “proposed way forward to stopping the wastage of lives of Nigeria’s youths through wrong mentality towards education”. The points are listed as follow:


- knowing the difference between academics and education
- Interest
- Mindset/language
- Government mindset
- Establishment of schools for informal education
- Corruption

In the last update I only explained the first two points and I will be explaining the remaining four points as listed above.

MINDSET/LANGUAGE

Many students think that by going to school to have a good grade and speaking good English make them literate. This is far from the truth. What most people look out for in graduates these days to access their intelligence is their communication skill in English language not even in their dialect. They believe that any graduate that speaks perfect English is actually qualified to be called a graduate/ educated/literate.

Many even believe that anybody they see dressed in suit with a nice shoe and a tie is automatically qualified to be referred to as an educated person let alone when such a person speaks big grammar in English language. This kind of mentality towards education is dangerous to education. Let us take a closer look at the definition of this word called LITERACY. Literacy by dictionary can be defined as the ability to read and write to a competent level. It also means skill in particular subject i.e. knowledge of or competence in a subject or area of activity.


From the two different definitions of what literacy means, it is obvious that many in the society whom we point a hand of accusation to as being illiterate are actually not illiterate. Well, many of these people are being accused of illiteracy just because they cannot speak good English, write in English language and read in English language. Literacy does not demand that they read and write in English language rather it demands that they have a skill and be competent in such acquired skill. It also demands that they know how to read and write in whatever language they understand and not necessarily in English because English is one of those numerous other languages we have in the world. Just because these people do not speak English or write in English language does not make them illiterate.


They at least write and read in their dialect like in Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa languages. English language is not their indigenous language therefore using it to determine their literacy would be wrong. Every country in the world has got its own language and they do everything possible to preserve it. That a country like Britain colonised a country like Nigeria does not mean that Nigeria the colonised country should continue to be dependent on the language of the British for ever.

Education is not all about reading and writing in a English language rather it is the application of whatever knowledge you have to solve a problem around you. Be the doer of the word and not just the hearer alone the holy bible confirms. This means you are not complete (half baked) if you don’t apply what you feel you know to meet with your needs. As a matter of fact many of these people we call illiterate have a skill in one profession or the other and most importantly they practice these professions in solving one problem or the other in the society. For example the local mechanic uses his acquired skill in automobile in solving car engine related problems. The carpenter in the work shop uses his knowledge in assemblage of structures using wood in solving furniture related problems in the country.

Is it the Welder on the street that you want to talk about who also uses his knowledge in metal construction in solving problems that are related to metal work e.g they construct our over head water tank system, they construct and build our window and door metal burglary proof to mention but a few. Therefore education in summary entails Information + application.
For Nigeria to be truly independent, it has to refuse to continue to be dependent on a foreign language as its official language over its indigenous self carved languages. The reason for this is because a language is meant to be a way of life.

It is a devised medium through which people communicate to one another over a long period of time with its own set of convention or special words. Therefore enforcing a foreign language on such people by making it their official language would only affect everything about them negatively, hence the reason why countries like china, Japan , south and north Korea, France, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia to mention but a few each makes a language that all its citizens understand their official language other than a foreign language.

Countries like china and United State of America were once colonised by British (England) but today these countries use their own indigenous languages as official languages to communicate with their people.USA for instance, though colonised by the British has decided to carve out a language that the generality of its people would understand. This language they have termed America English which is different from British English in terms of spelling and pronunciation. It would totally not be correct if anybody measures their (America) literacy level based on Britain English Language. On the other hand, Nigeria as a country colonised by the British has refused to understand that language plays important role in its education system.

Nigeria’s present official language is English language despite the fact that the british had left the country more than 50 years ago. It is astonishing to note that less than 30% of Nigeria’s population can actually read and write in English language. That means the greater percentage of the population can could not communicate freely in English language let alone of writing.
But there is a language that Nigerians have carved out for themselves over the years in which more than 90% of Nigeria’s population understands and can communicate freely with one and another using this specially carved out language. This language has been termed Pidgin English just like the American English, Pidgin language has a content of indigenous language with some slangs and English language mixed together. For Nigeria to be among 1-20 best economy of the world it has to seriously consider it is communication language or system among its population.

Nigeria’s population would have to communicate in a common language that more than 80% of its population would understand. The answer to this common unifying language with which Nigerians would communicate understandably in with one another is PIDGIN ENGLISH LANGUAGE. This is so because Nigeria as a country consists of numerous ethnic languages with which all of these ethnic languages have something in common throughout the length and breath of the country and that thing is Pidgin English. This language would go a long way in helping students to understand easily every bit of what they learn in school since it would not be written in a foreign language entirely.

If English language were to be the criteria in measuring the standard of education or probably to tell if one is educated or not, then one can easily say that countries like Japan, Chinese, South and North Korea, Spain, Germany, France and the likes are all countries filled with bunch of illiterates. Why? It is because an average citizen in these countries speaks in his or her local dialect and not in English language. In these countries an individual can hardly compose a sentence together successfully in English language. Despite their low communicating skill in English language you would definitely agree with me that their standard of Education or technology can not in any way be compared with that of Africa. This implies that it does not matter the language that you speak or write what matters most is
EDUCATION= INFORMATION+ APPLICATION

EDITED

Please, I was suppose to put this in family section where I posted the first write up. That is why you can not view the first part of this write up. Please to view the first part of this write up, kindly follow the link: https://www.nairaland.com/1287325/how-lives-nigerias-youths-being#15678968

https://www.nairaland.com/1287325/how-lives-nigerias-youths-being#15678968