Boarding Schools: A Den Of Atrocities?

In the light of recent immoral acts and gruesome acts reported in schools, especially boarding schools, ADEOLA OTEMADE spoke with teachers, parents and guardians on why things have gone so bad.

In the days gone by, parents often put their children in boarding schools for different reasons. In the South Western part of the country, apart from putting children in boarding schools, it was not unusual for parents to send their children to live with relatives, rather than staying with their biological parents, due to the belief that they would turn out better.

Parents often enrolled their children in certain schools for different reasons. For some, it is because of the reputation such schools have built for themselves by turning out disciplined and brilliant students as well as providing them with quality boarding while for others it is not so much about reputation but proximity and affordable fees or simply because they are alumni and alumnae of such schools. Sometimes, also, parents put their very young children in boarding houses because older siblings are already in the school.

However, whatever the case may be, the situations in most boarding houses have changed from what they used to be some 30, 40 years back. In fact stories emanating from boarding schools are saddening such that it is now a great risk for parents sending their children to such places.

In recent times, reports of immoral behaviours, including bullying, resulting in the death of the victims in addition to defilement and other forms of moral degeneration in boarding schools have dominated the media, often becoming the meat of social media trends.

Many boarding schools, which were once thought to be a safe environment for children, where they learned discipline, moral virtues, and independence have, in the light of recent gruesome events, become nests for grooming young criminals.

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Alex (not real name) shared the story of how his experience as a boarder nearly destroyed his life. Alex was enrolled in a boarding school at a relatively young age by his parents and precisely when he was in Junior Secondary School II. Everything was going on well until he started encountering some weird and strange situations he found hard to process and comprehend.

“My stay in the boarding school was filled with lot of experience, quite a lot and, mostly, I had bad experiences. I had both the good and the bad (experiences), but I had quite a lot of bad moments back at the boarding school. I entered into boarding house at JSS2. It was fine from the start until I started experiencing what I was not used to and it was quite a lot to deal with because I was really young and this happened in 2000.

“What I was exposed to was really new for me, and because of my naivety, it was quite a lot to handle, and quite a lot to deal with at that time. I was exposed to cultism, homosexuality, and other such acts,” he explained.

Speaking further with Sunday Tribune, Alex recounted his ordeals, noting that even after 22 years, he still cringes whenever he remembers his life in the boarding school. Those experiences, he said, almost ruined his life.

“The first thing I was exposed to was homosexuality, from one of my seniors. He was in SS2. One night, he took me to a quiet place that was really far from where anyone could hear us. And because of how naive I was, I followed him. He kept on saying that he liked me, and as strange as it sounded coming from a guy, I had to say I like you back because I felt that was the only polite thing to say when people tell you they like you.

“He then went on to say it was more than just likeness; he wanted us to be together. That was when I processed the whole thing and I knew from then on that he was asking me to be gay. I turned him down, and the moment I did, the school became hell for me. He looked for any chance to maltreat me, making life unbearable for me.

“There are so many details I can’t go into. I had to endure fear any time I hear his name, and it was all because I refused his advances and he hated me for that. After I left, it really traumatised me so much that any time anything gay comes up, I just get scared.

“I was also introduced into cultism; there were seniors looking for junior ones to recruit into their circle. I was approached but I refused, and it was a problem for whoever refused to join them or turned them down. Somehow, I was able to turn down all these things.

“The third one I was exposed to at a tender age was sex. In my room, I had mates who sneaked out of the school into town to have sex with prostitutes only to come back to give us the gist. They would give us vivid explanation of how everything went down, and it was easy for anyone to become fascinated or influenced. I can only say it was the grace of God that saw me through,” he said.

Also sharing her own experience, Omolara Olayemi-Ajayi, a nurse, said things were quite different in her own case, as she attended an all-girls school. For her, boarding school was safe, though there were vices that some students indulged in. Despite that, it was still a relatively safe environment.

“Well, if you ask me, I would say it was safe at the time I was in the school. I don’t know if it was our imaginations, or those spirits that we heard of were real, but hostel was really scary then. I attended an all-girls’ school, and many times we would always hear that rapists were in the hostels and all sorts. We never caught or saw any though, just stories.

“Also, during my time, we would always hear that some of the students were possessed by the ‘mammy water’ spirit; this might be true because some of them used to fall and confess whenever deliverances were done. During my last days in school, this was real, because I experienced it first-hand. Armed robbers came into the hostel and injured some of us and also stole our laptops and phones.

“If all these things happened during our days, they could still be happening today and this can make hostels unsafe for children to live in. Also, I believe boarding schools are the perfect places where children could be exposed to all sorts of vices. We knew of girls having sex during my time as young as we were. We had some smoking and drinking; so if you ask me, hostel is still a NO for me,” she stated.

Ebunoluwa Ogungbemi a freelance writer, attended Federal Girls Government College, Ipetumodu, Osun State. For her it was quite a different experience at the girl-only school,saying there was no major issue she could recollect.

“My experience was good; I didn’t have any issue with seniors except for group punishments. I ‘stayed in my lane’ with my mates. I had a school mother in JSS I; she was cool and was in SS III then. She was nice and didn’t allow any senior student to bully me. I actually liked most of the food we ate; church was okay. I had a guardian that helped keep my money, a nurse in the school health centre. I would go and collect N50 daily at break time. I had lots of friends too. I loved the social nights, the end of the session parties that came with real food, the inter-house sports, and the visiting days. I mostly enjoyed my stay. I was there for three years, age 10 to age 12,” she added.

Iyanuoluwa Kolawole, now a lawyer, also believes that her experience in the boarding school was a good one as it helped her to imbibe good virtues.

“Boarding school was a good experience for me. It built in me virtues such as accountability, responsibility, and how to be independent, because it was home away from home. Personally, I don’t think there is something that has an advantage without a disadvantage. Hence there were the good side and the bad side,” she said.

What is wrong with boarding schools?

But who needs boarding and when should parents decide that boarding is actually the best for their children? According to Mr Kayode Shobayo, a boarding school teacher, the reasons most parents’ decision to put their children in boarding schools are sometimes untenable and even ridiculous, an indication that good parenting is dying as some of them have failed in their bounding duty of raising their children.

“I work in a boarding school as a teacher; we do not have any day student, so it is full boarding. Having worked for a few years as a teacher and relating with these parents from time to time, I can say parents have failed in raising their children. The reasons some will give you for wanting their child to attend a boarding school will leave you speechless. People are running after money.

“The major reasons you hear parents give is because they want to pursue money. Everybody wants to work; wife wants to work and come back late, husband wants to work and come back late. So they would rather send the children to boarding schools. And the worst part is they don’t have time to check on the children to know what they are going through.

“This is where the problem is: when the children now come home for vacation, they are still busy and they are not even at home to monitor what the children do at home. They buy them phones to communicate with them while they are away; they don’t know what the children do with the phones. There is a damage that has been caused from home, and parents are now trying to look up to schools, not just boarding schools, to correct the errors they made, or the errors they are still making,” Shobayo explained.

Speaking further, he said: “Another reason is failed marriages. Many children you see around are from broken homes. The father and the mother not together; the mom has a shop she needs to attend to, she has to cater for all the children, so it is not easy for her. So she prefers for them to just stay in the boarding school and raise more money to cater for them while they are away.”

In essence, Shobayo said many of these children are already damaged goods from their homes who the parents expect the schools to fix. But as the school is not exempted from the general rot, it is unable to meet the parents’ expectations and some of these goods got damaged the more.

Corroborating Shobayo’s claim on failed parenting a retired school teacher, Mrs Yemisi Otemade, explained that some parents have shifted the responsibility of grooming their children to the schools by shipping the children out at tender ages.

“Some parents, I believe, are unwilling to accept their responsibilities. They would rather pay someone else to look after their children.”My children were ‘day’ students when they were in primary school, but the school they attended has a boarding facility. My son once asked me if the parents of the students in the boarding school had died since he didn’t understand why they were there. I later reasoned that as a mother, why would one enrol a child in a boarding facility so early?”

According to the principal of a boarding school, Mrs Olutoyin Adeniji, as a parent, she would rather suggest that the age a child can be enrolled into a boarding school should be from the age of nine, and before then, the parent must study if the children could handle challenges.

“I would suggest that the age a child to be allowed in a boarding school should be around the ages of nine upward. Parents must study if their child could handle challenges, because in the hostel, the children will face challenges, academically, socially and how to interact with their peers and the teachers. They must be well studied by their parents to know if they can cope in the hostel,” she said.

In Mr Shobayo’s opinion, children should not be taken to boarding schools until they are in junior secondary school one.

“Children in primary schools should not be taken to boarding schools because at that stage of their lives they need to spend more time with their parents. They need to understand parental love, parental care and their social environment that is outside the boarding school. They need to bond while they stay with their parents and siblings. This is the most important stage of a child’s life, especially from kindergarten two to primary six because that is where the child’s future and direction takes off. So, I feel children should be taken to boarding school only when they are in junior secondary school,” he added.

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