The dwindling standard of education in Nigeria: The way forward (4)

Why students join cultism

WHY do students join cultism? Many reasons can be proffered but I will attempt just a few. Some of the reasons are:

i.            Desire to obtain undue privileges ii.   Desire to have a sense of power; influence and prestige among fellow students iii.      Desire to command undeserved authority and respect within the campus iv. Readiness to confront injustice and inequity especially from school authorities and lecturers

v. Rabid desire to terrorise people by exhibiting capability to inflict violence on real and imagined adversaries vi. Need to force and intimidate both lecturers and fellow students to grant unjustified, selfish and devilish requests vii. Desire to attract for members undeserved rights and privileges viii. To carry undue favour and obtain financial assistance.

ix. For the male cultists, to create an avenue of securing girl friend through the employment of intimidating and or guarantee of protection on campus x. Need to work in conjunction with other students of similar persuasion for purposes of evading sanctions and or unjustified punishment. xi. Urge to acquire false boldness consequent upon their own inherent weakness and or lack of parental care, good home training. xii. Simply out of misplaced inquisitiveness and use of social vices.

Against the backdrop of the above, I would humbly suggest the following as part of the measures to minimize and or eradicate cultism on our campuses. i. There should be full sensitization of students in all our campuses to the ills and dangers of cultism which include untimely death. ii. Members of any secret society and or campus cult should be prohibited in all ramification. iii. Right from matriculation, freshmen should be made to be aware of the penalty of outright expulsion should any of them dabble into cultism.

iv. Compulsory disclosure of the identity(ies) of cult or suspected cult members. v. Institutionalization of external vigilance by students, lecturers, non-academic staff and indeed, the entirety of academic community. vi. Immediate rustication of cultism upon discovery and apprehension. The names should be published in national dailies with photographs.

vii. A law should be enacted making it impossible for ant convicted, expelled or rusticated cult members to secure admission into any institution of learning in Nigeria. viii. Prevention of cultists from obtaining Nigerian passport. ix. Special law and special court for cultists for quick disposal of cases involving cultists.

x.           Banning of the consumption and sale of alcohol and drugs on campus.

xi. Monetized student union elections should be prohibited xii. Suspected cult members should be banned from contesting for and/ or holding student union posts. xiii. Routine inspection of halls of residence by designated honest officials of the institution. xiv. Academic and administrative machineries in the universities be made to release results of examinations within a specified time. Failure should be treated as a misconduct and strict penalty should be meted out to defaulters. It is noted that in Diploma and other Certificate part-time courses, the results are released without any delay because of the extra payment.

Conclusion

From this discourse, the following are the salient points to be noted:

1. The quality of our education has been seriously battered through the admission of poor materials. 2. The quality of the products of our secondary schools student seeking admission and/or admitted to our universities is very low. 3. There is the imperative need to address quickly and decisively our education system from primary level to tertiary level. 4. That JAMB should respect the university autonomy on admission criteria particularly on outstanding brilliant students and age limit. 5. The entire education curriculum in elementary and secondary schools must be revisited, improved upon in line with modern trend and reality of our time.

6. Formal training of teachers should be emphasized particularly for elementary and secondary schools 7. Higher School Certificate awarding institutions (Basic Studies) should be revived while emphasis should henceforth be on direct entry to universities through possession of HSC thereby obviating the need to take JAMB examination.

8. Salaries and emoluments of teachers, lecturers and professors should be enhanced for optimal performances. 9. Discipline should not only be observed but enforced in all ramifications. 10. The trend all over the world, including USA, England, China, Japan, Australia is to allow universities to charge fees while government continue to provide percentage of the university expenses. 11. The question of funding has to be addressed frankly and honestly without any iota of sentiments, political or otherwise.

12. We should be deceiving ourselves and inflicting an avoidable havoc on our educational system should we believe that government can do and should fund all the expenses of our federal and state universities. 13. The practice all over the world is now cooperative funding involving all organs and stakeholders. 14. Students with exceptional academic performances whether from rich or poor homes are admitted to full scholarship  15. The children of the poor should not be denied university education. They are entitled to one form of assistance or the other including free tuition, bursary, scholarship or loan as is practiced in civilized countries.

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16. Fees payable should be graduated. In other words, the parents of rich students should pay full university fees. Student from average home would pay less while students with poor background should not pay fees.

17. Alumni and Endowment and contributions from big companies should play more prominent role as practiced in civilized countries.

AARE AFE BABALOLA, OFR, CON, SAN, LL.D (Lond.)