You wouldn’t know something if you haven’t seen or experienced it. That’s how it is for studying in Nigeria. Starting from the primary to the secondary and finally, the university, studying in Nigeria is just one big problem. There’s just a whole lot of problems associated with it. Let me give you a run-down of the things you get to face daily as a student in Nigeria and I’ll just lay my emphasis on university students.
First, you have to be admitted into the school, remember? So, you get to write series of exams which include, WAEC, GCE, JAMB and PUTME. After passing these exams to the school’s satisfaction, do you know that you could still not be given admission? Lol. It’s possible that someone who had a lower score than you did, but somehow has wealthy parents would get the admission you worked so hard for. This means that these people pay some money to some people who run the school admission process and they remove somebody’s name and put their child’s name.
Now, you see why you weren’t given admission that first time even when your score was higher than the cut-off mark. Now, after the hustle for admission, if the school wants to just pity you, they would give you a course that isn’t what you want and most times, a course you would never have chosen. A lot of people take this course because there is an avenue for you to change your course after some time. So, let me quickly remind you that changing your course isn’t as easy as you think. You first have to have a very good CGPA after your second year, knowing that you’ll resume from first year again when you successfully change.
Now, you’ll have to apply for change of department. If your department accepts that you can go and sign you out from the department and the other department you want to change to says they don’t want you, voila, you have now become departmentless, after two years in the school. In some rare cases, you can do some running around and begging and you’d be able to change your course.
Should I now tell you about the fact that there’s actually not enough seat for the number of students admitted into the school yearly? Some departments have almost 300 students per set and have classes with only 100 seats. This means you have to stand and receive lectures which could run from very early in the morning till 6pm in the evening. There are faculty halls but, what lecturer would want to be screaming at the top of his lungs because the school didn’t provide for microphones and speakers for departments with large populations?
Then, you know that after classes, you’d have to go home right? Some students don’t have homes in some schools. They just squat from place to place. This is one of the excuse some ladies give for co-habiting in the first place and sometimes, you would really pity them because they didn’t get hostel spaces and they can’t afford the rents for houses off-campus. Even the hostels aren’t even conducive enough for people to live in. Plus, the students living off-campus aren’t also assured of security because, well, as far as the school is concerned, they don’t live inside the school premises. But then, how would you blame them for staying outside school when you couldn’t give them room spaces or at least provide spaces for them to stay?
Then, there is the issue of wicked, demonic lecturers that would come to you with impossible assignments and submission dates, those who do not ever come to class and then give you impossible exam questions and finally, the ones who make sure that you carry a course over for years just because maybe you countered them in class one time or they just don’t like your face.
Schooling in Nigeria is a just an extreme sport. Its tiring, exhausting and then, you finally leave school after spending thousands of Naira and you end up jobless, roaming the streets and selling wristwatches and shoes just because you didn’t get a job. Nigerian students should be given a pat on the back everywhere they are seen. When you see a Nigerian student, the first thing you should do is give him/her a hug. We go through a lot and are finally underrated, unappreciated and unemployed. I am not going to tell you about how the labour market treats graduates. I am going to keep that for another article. Thank you for reading.
