It's called 'Western Education' today

Sadly, the North continues to be synonymous with religious crises. Sometimes it is called a political upheaval, but recently it’s supposedly about Western education.

As someone once pointed out, the youths encouraged to carry out these horrific deeds are the uneducated ones who have not reaped the benefits of Western education; the people who believe that “the world is flat and rain is not caused by evaporation…”, as The Times of London quotes.

Right now there’s temporary peace, abi, so it’s time for people to vamoose while they still can. In places like Kano, Kaduna, Plateau State, numerous folks have packed their things and relocated to more peaceful(at this time) states. That September 2001 Jos experience really rocked us, but we still weren’t prepared for a repeat… followed by another… and another. It becomes useless for struggling businessmen to pick up the few pieces they have, only for them to be destroyed again & again.

Those who stay behind are to remain vigilant; their lives depend on it. It’s so bad; when folks have finally managed to relax, hell erupts again- and it doesn’t help that it starts in the early morning hours (the last thing on the mind at 2am is fada (fight) -unless you’re having a vision inspired by God or by excess beans in the belly). So the advice to “check if the elderly beggars are still on the streets” is clearly out (this was the advice I was given when schooling in Minna. The theory behind this is that beggars are warned about impending riots).

But I still thank God; I shudder as I realise that for some countries, life is infinitely more uncertain than this. War is a daily reality. Mass burials, decay, no food to stock up on, no place to hide, agony... things I’d rather not dwell on. But while we thank God that our portion is not as heavy, the fact remains that Nigeria is in trouble and we all know what the problems are. It’s how to move from ‘here’ to ‘there’ on the back of a totally lame government that confounds.

Still on somewhat related news…

I get confused sometimes. ‘Why did I stress myself to go to the university again? Erm, so that I could/can get a good job.’ This answer usually pacified me, until I was faced with a class full (kai, school full) of young ladies who were uninterested in schooling. ‘Is it enough for me to say ‘Yan Mata (young ladies) you need to get to Uni too so that you can get a good job’? Not really. I’m sure I could have attached the you-will-become-an-independent-woman tag, but it wasn’t the correct answer to me. In the end I just shut up and focused more on forcing Chemistry down. If only I had come across this article sooner:

“What is the purpose of education?”
By Luke Onyekakeyah, The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper, 4th August 2009.

“…Though the fundamental philosophy [of education] has always been to impart and acquire knowledge through teaching and learning procedures as is done in school or any similar institutions, the purpose of spending time, energy and resources to impart and acquire the knowledge depends on the society’s needs... The Eastern world has a distinct educational system tailored to solve problems in those countries… I discovered that because Japan is an earthquake prone country, their educational system is tailored to handle this problem. School curriculum is designed to produce experts that would effectively tackle society’s problems. Consequently, Japanese engineers, architects, planners, etc are trained to carry out their profession with the country’s problems in mind. Thus, buildings, bridges, highways are designed and built to withstand earthquakes…

[But Nigeria’s]educational system is blindly tailored to the colonial education system [whose target then was to produce clerks, accounts officers, administrators, managers and other white-collar job oriented manpower]. But the colonial education purpose in Africa is no longer relevant. No country in Africa has been able to develop a homemade education system that is tailored to address local development needs. That partly explains why most countries in Africa are retrogressing…

One of the greatest problems facing this country since independence is energy. At the same time, we have in this country abundant solar energy, gas resources, coal, wind and geothermal energy to name a few. We have abundant solid mineral resources that can’t be exploited because the educational system has failed to produce the needed manpower to exploit these minerals…”

Of course, the universities offer the necessary courses- petroleum engineering, geophysics, environmental science, etc but you know now: output is negligible.
His solution: We need an educational revolution. Mercy Ette says she knows that the solution she profers is likely to vex folks, but sha, the educational system can be revamped only when all the institutions are closed down and re-structured. Ahh! I can imagine not only the President’s face, but undergrads’ too. They certainly won’t be doing this:

Well, we hope a revolution will happen on that elusive “one day”.
Till then.

Cramming

For lack of concrete ideas for my Personal Saviour series, I regret to announce that I’ll be blogging about the benefits of cramming (reading and memorizing without understanding a thing) instead. (When one of my friends confided that she never shared her ideas with anyone until they were successful, and about how she ate up a piece of paper containing a plan immediately her sister read it, I thought out loud: “A-ah! That’s strange animal behaviour!” Well I wish I kept my mouth (or my fingers, in this case) to myself about this Personal Saviour series. I feel like all talk and no action).
Yes. I wish I exhibited strange animal behaviour rather than tail-between-the-legs animal behaviour. Ah well.

I fell sick a few days to my final exams. Malaria.
Naturally, I felt horrible because I felt weak and nauseous all of the time, and I considered all the precious time ticking away - I also had two projects to finish (actually the second one, a group design project, was contracted out-shame on us- but I still needed to understand it). And then there was one more test: Process Control.

The course was a prayer point for most of us, and here I was, the day before the test, lying on my bed and doing my best to sob quietly as my classmates were doing TDB (Till Day Break). The last time I felt so hopeless was in my SSI, before a Biology exam. I had passed the exam with flying colours, but would the miracle repeat itself? With Control?? There were new topics the lecturer covered, of which I was clueless. And it was Control. The test was to be in objective (OMR) format, and I liked OMR… but it was Control.

I hadn’t started taking any medication because I wanted to read, and felt that the drugs would hinder my brain from understanding the difference between a set-point change and a… erm… load change? I can’t remember. (I think this is a good time to mention that I crammed a little, so it’s in order that I cannot recall something I read barely two months ago, shebi?)

I struggled, and in the end, I didn’t read much for this dreaded 4 unit course. Test day came, and my friends and I slowly walked to the hall under the hot sun. The lecturer, a venerable Prof., was late, which was all the better for us. As people whipped out past questions, an exhausted me put my heavy head on the table and slept off. Some ten minutes before the man arrived. My friend woke me to look at the previous year’s past OMR question paper. As we looked through it, another girl joined us. And another.

“How do you solve this one?”
I managed to explain it, since it was a topic I was familiar with. This gave me a surge of confidence…
…till she asked about the next one.

“Ah, why are you guys stressing yourself?!” the first girl complained. The answer is B.
My mental mouth fell open. You mean people were cramming the options too? How unwise.
As if to confirm my thoughts, she proceeded, pointing:

“This one is A. This one is A also. This one is C…”
I stole a glance at the others. They were stunned too. Then we all laughed, and guess what happened next:
My friend said she knew the next question’s answer, but not necessarily the alphabet. Hmmm…
I now thought, “lemme give it a try too. They might change the option/type, but if I cram the answers…” and so we changed tactics. We devoted our remaining time to cramming the answers, period. Let the worst not happen.

He repeated the questions.
He didn’t even bother changing the option/type. Even the errors in the previous question papers were there. I believe my friend saved my academic life. There was no chance I could have solved all those questions in the time given. Cramming saved me. And I know… it’s not a thing to be proud of, but I’m glad I crammed nonetheless! This is the state of education in Nigeria, and FUT Minna is truly Nigerian in this respect. (Most of us operate this way:

Input = Output. (NO ACCUMULATION)).

Kurungus!

Chai!

It's about four weeks to exams, and my project is still misbehaving. I might even have to modify the topic because of equipment wahala. Sigh... I had assumed that having just two courses would make the semester an easy one.

An incorrect assumption.

I'm not complaining or being moody about it, though. (Big miracle) On the bright side, I've been developing the non-academic aspects of my life, halelluyah! I guess it's all about seeing things -the good and the bad- in perspective then.

Imagine!

One word keeps repeating itself in my head:


"Olodo"

A Chemistry lecturer called me that yesterday afternoon, by 2:56 pm to be precise (Actually, I'm not sure about the time).

Olodo.

Me? What did I do to deserve that?

It is simple:

One of the projects I'm working on has a chapter called three (you see, I'm psychologically scarred by that olodo word; I'm beginning to believe it and therefore SPEAK like one). Anyway.


My chapter three has to do with experimental analysis, and unfortunately, my department's lab doesn't have all the equipment I need, so I need to use the Chemistry lab, which does.
Now I'd heard that Chemistry lectureres weren't fond of Chem. Eng students, and the man did nothing to dispel that rumour. He started by asking me what I wanted in this irritated fashion lecturers in general are so fond of. I calmly stated my purpose.


"Go and get your procedures, then I can tell you whether we can help you," he replied cooly.


Me sef. Why didn't I think of that? I thought. Well, I did just that and went back to his office. There was another lecturer in the office this time, a woman. I greeted her politely.


"Chemical ba?" The man asked, clearly annoyed.

"Yes Sir."

"So... what do you have?"

"I got the procedures and I have written down the equipment I need"

"Okay," he answered, browsing through it.

"'Graduated cylinder... with lid'" he read aloud, not understanding it. He proceeded to read it again: "Graduated cylinder... with lid. A-ah! That is a measuring cylinder now"

"Yes," the woman confirmed.

"Yes," I parroted.

"Okay, we have that. 2ml eye-dropper with 0.5 ml graduations"
I winced visibly, I think.

"A-ah!" They both wondered. "Isn't that a pipette?" the woman helped.

Okay... it's true. "I think so, Ma"

"Flat bed press... for drying fabric"

I winced again; at the time I wrote the 'for drying fabric' part , it made technical sense.

"This girl is writing these things in her own words," he grumbled.

"Or she's using an old text book," the woman said.

"No Sir, I ... got it from the internet," I said.

He proceeded. "Oven"

"For burning the dried fabric and collecting the ashes and volatile matter," I said.

"That one is a fur-"

"Furnace, " I finished, eager to save my below-red rep.

That's when he said that thing. That I seem to be an olodo.

He didn't put it that way, to be sure. He said, under his breath but loud enough for the woman (and myself, of course) to hear: "[Ngbati gbati gbati] olodo". He said it in Yoruba. I just hate it when that happens, sigh.

"Ah!" The woman said, excited for the first time. "That's how those Engineering students are. And that is what they are releasing into the society (Releasing... like a plague or virus. Ok).

She buttressed her point with the case of a guy, also in my department, who didn't know how to carry out a "simple distillation of ethanol and water!"

They both said some other things, but I was still on 'olodo' sha. When they finished he told me to write a letter, asking for permission to use their lab. I said "thank you very much" to which they replied, "You're very welcome"

Olodo.

I guess it pains because I know.

I know that it's not necessarily "beef" that is making the Chemistry lecturers talk so.

I know that I don't know HALF of what a Chemical Engineer at my level should know.

I know that all those times our lecturers gave us 'areas of concentration' for exams and ignored the rest of the syllabus we were only cheating ourselves.

I know that the lecturers are not the only ones at fault.

I know that I could have studied harder, to make up for the inadequate education I was receiving.

I know that I should stop here. I have two projects, two courses, and two skit scripts to work on (actually, three).

LECTURER'S ARENA

“Time up! Submit your papers!”

Mr. Stressful practically screams. It’s a calculation course. The time is really not enough, but most of the 300 level Chemical Engineering students hurry to comply, nonetheless. Half-bread is better than none, they say, and it really applies in this case.

To keep writing while Mr. Stressful screams and takes your concentration and biro-chewing energy away is guaranteed to make him mad, tear up your paper, and sometimes, fail you a couple of times.

Despite this though, students will always be students. You’d notice people forming clusters, checking out their answers-

“A-ah! How did you get a bottom product of 625lbs?!”

“Abegs, turn the paper now!!”

This naturally prompts Mr. Stressful to say something like “Apart from these people here-” He gestures “- the rest of you should not submit!”

Really?

Well this makes the commotion intensify –everybody starts pushing to submit their test scripts, and as two hundred students are telling each other to move or get trampled, Mr. Stressful points and bellows:

“You chooked me!!”

A sharp, high pitched and very ticked off retort goes “Excuse Sir, I did not chook you!”

“Keep quiet! I said you chooked me! I saw you!!”

“I said I did not chook you! I did not chook you!” she replies, flailing her arms in anger.

He looks her up and down, and then you realize that this chic is towering over him. Hmm… The man is clearly unimpressed by this. In his anger, he forgets what he said earlier on about not collecting some scripts and collects them all as he launches into an interesting speech:

“You think I don’t know you?! I know you! See the pencil in your hand too! Hm! You will see! Very rude girl…I’ve been observing you… you will see!”

Suddenly, the reality that this particular lecturer can make her or break her dawns on her. She immediately gets on her knees and proceeds,

“Excuse Sir!! I-said-I-did-not-chook-you-and-I-did-not-chook-you!!”

(Uh-oh! Is that a hiss that just escaped her lips?! And is she really folding her hands across her chest in this I’m-ready-to-fight way? That… doesn’t really go with the kneeling pose). But she’s past caring anyway; of all the one hundred and ninety nine students, he picks on her.

Lai-lai, today is today! The man makes a good show of ignoring her, though he might probably be feeling better now that he’s a bit taller than her.

Papers in hand, he walks out of the lecture hall imperiously, and she promptly stands up and follows him, pouting mouth leading the way.

[N.B:- Help me fill the blank: “Ye, you _______ me!” a) chooked b) chuked c) chukked d) none of these]