Sufferings of a Nigerian Student

Students taking lectures sitting on the floor

I wanted to write about the African student but I decided to write this one first since “charity they say begins at home”.

Being a student in Nigeria is the most herculean task I know.

You first start from the kindergarten, then spend three years in the nursery school, then six years in both primary and secondary schools, then another four, five or six years in the university, depending on your course and of course you can leave out the years when the teachers would go on strike due to one issue or the other with the government.

That’s a complete total of at least twenty years if you didn’t repeat any class along the line.

At first, not everyone cares about your grades in the early stages until you get to primary one, that’s when everyone starts expecting you to be among the top in your class.

The higher your go, the greater the pressure for success and that goes on and on till you graduate but it doesn’t even stop there.

The Nigerian student suffers a lot in silence mostly because their opinions are either called stupid or disregarded.

Not just the student that suffer but also his parents too, because of the hell they have to go through to make sure that their child gets a sound education.

Both the government and most teachers, lecturers and so on doesn’t even care.

When I say that Nigeria is a country where you can comfortably say that a family that can afford to put their child through a complete educational system is comfortable I mean that literally.

To raise a Nigerian student costs a lot and the funny thing is that the income which the parents who are raising these children get every month is not even enough for a complete set of text books.

Another thing is that after the parents must have labored day and night to get the necessary fees required to put their child through school, then come the teachers, lecturers and so on who try to make their money from the students.

Students sitting on tires while writing exams

I can easily tell you that the only reason why 99% of Nigerian students try as much as they can to get a degree is just to make sure that they are guaranteed a brighter future with good job and money, no one cares about the knowledge, not even the lecturers.

For instance, some people study computer engineering for five years and once they have acquired their certificate, they still go back to roadside technicians to learn their craft or they go and pay a heavy sum of money at computer schools to learn programming languages.

Many students go to school so as to get the certificate and once they get it, they then either get jobs that have nothing to do with their area of specialization or start doing business

In fact, the guy that opened one of my bank accounts for me studied industrial chemistry in the university, what the hell is he doing as a worker in the bank?

I can give you a list of many of these kind of scenarios but that would get boring at a point.

The part that annoys me most is the part where everyone is expected to top their class in every subject, especially in the secondary schools.

When I was in the secondary school or high school as some would call it, I took interest in some subjects and did even care about the rest, I just wanted the knowledge.

I wasn’t top of the class but when it comes to certain subjects I don’t joke, I loved physics, geography, economics, mathematics, English language, technical drawing, igbo language (vernacular) etc. I cared less about subjects like chemistry, English literature, government, biology etc.

I wasn’t the best in theory but practical were like candy to me. I loved seeing the things written on textbooks being done, it makes me feel awesome.

But then the teachers and parents’ only cares about the one that tops the class. I wasn’t bad in that aspect too, I was among the first ten in the class but for some reason it isn’t that big of a deal to me, I just enjoyed the subjects I liked and failed the ones I hated.

Now on one occasion,

I came first position In Igbo language (vernacular) in my class and when the teacher whose subject I had excelled in came into the class to teach I was really tired and slept off during the lectures.When the teacher noticed, she did punish me by asking me to kneel down throughout the remaining part of the lecture.

When she finished, she decided to call out the first three students in her subject in the previous term and commend them.

She called out the guy that came third position, then the one that came second position, then when she called my name as the guy that came first position, I stood up from my kneeling position to answer and she was as surprised as hell.She had thought that the best guy in her subject was the guy who took overall first position in the class and that was her favourite student.

Instead this woman giving me words of commendation and advice she said and I quote “it is not possible, you can’t be the best in my subject please keep kneeling down you useless boy”.  She then went on to commend the other two guys.

This is an example of what the Nigerian student goes through, even the teachers have favorite students and I can assure you that this factor also comes into consideration when they grade their students.

I have witnessed it lots of times and it’s almost a tradition in Nigerian schools.

Students trying to study despite lack of electricity

In the tertiary institutions,

Students are forced to buy unnecessary textbooks by their lecturers,
Students are asked to pay a lot of money for practical that have already been covered by the school fees,Students are asked to pay for workbooks which they never get and for handouts which they never need to read.Students are asked to pay a fee or fail a course or get a lower grade than what they merited,
Students who fails a particular course can go and meet their lecturers and pay them off with cash or sex for better grades.Students who tries to date a girl marked by a lecturer magically gets an awaiting result or an F in the lecturer’s course.

The tertiary institutions are the worst because most students who succeeds there either taught themselves or paid heavily for good grades.

I have witnessed a situation where a lecturer only attended his class once and the only thing he gave the students was his course outline and he didn’t show his face again until the exams were over and he gets paid for his lectures.

On another occasion another lecturer comes to class every day and teaches and on the exam day he gives his students entirely different things from his course outline and also different from what he taught and then after the exams, he positioned the course rep in front of the exam hall to take names of students who wants to pay him for better grades.

The Nigerian students has to deal with all these and yet be expected to graduate with the best result ever and also be expected to be the best in his field.

Well the thing is that many of us do actually make great achievements even after all the obstacles and that is why am proud of us, THE NIGERIAN STUDENTS..

I don’t think that anybody can be as strong as the Nigerian Student and I don’t think that there are many countries whose students can endure the pain a Nigerian student endures, just to get educated.

So to the Nigerian students all over the country PharoahSays more grease to your elbows, also do not let the obstacles stop you from achieving your goals, try as much as your can to get the knowledge, because the certificate would get dusty and old one day but the knowledge won’t. 

In the long run, you’d know that the knowledge is what really matters, don’t wait for your lecturers, go out there and do your research, get the knowledge and don’t just think about getting a nice job, think bigger.

Be the one to give the jobs!!!