Got Beef...

What is with higher education Naija!? I've always tried to ignore how bad it is but now it hits closer home when it happened to my brother. He applied for part-time studies in University of Abuja, chose a particular program and had to wait. The first class he attended on a Friday evening was not so what it was supposed to be. It was more like a trade meeting where the students had to negotiate with lecturers on how they can "succeed" for the semester. They were told they have to purchase and read-up 10 textbooks for their program, buy handouts and then get ready for the exams. I don't even want to get started on the handouts. The handouts look like some nonsense some dreary-eyed lecturer ends up scribbling by 12am, he then makes copies of it and sells to the students. Other lecturers are "civil" enough to take their write-ups to some cut-and-nail business center to get it typed with so much typos and grammatical errors that'd leave you wondering if this is supposed to be some lecture material. It's so pathetic. And in the end, they have the gutso to stand up and tell students that purchasing these parchments account for 10% of their overall semester scores. Students are in turn led into a frenzy of trying to purchase these and focus on them, thus distracting a lot of them from what they should really focus on for the semester-their course work, which should come from some other reliable source.

Lectures are conducted haphazardly. Tired students come into classrooms in the evening from their different jobs or whatever they keep busy with. Mr. Okoro thinking about the proposal he submitted that is yet to get "pushed" through sits there distracted, sketching or writing blankly in his book. Ms. Rose's daughter keeps crying in the lecture hall and gets interrupted several times with trips out of class. Cellphones are the norm with the students taking call in the classes. All the lecturer needs to do is frighten them with failure and the lot who do not even have time to open their textbooks know what to do by the end of semester - see Mr. Lecturer for "settlement".

The part that actually raised my BP was when he came back the other day with a letter for provisional admission stating his admission number and program. Dude applied for Public Administration, but on his letter of admission it was auto-changed to "B.Ed. Mathematics". What the flying fck? How d bloody hell is he going to adjust after all these time? He waited for over a year for this and when it was time, he got this. I just can't put in words how disappointed I am with this. I feel so bad and helpless. Ho hum, he isn't alone in this as a good number of students applying for preliminary studies get the same treatment also. Studying full time isn't any joke, either. JAMB screws people over, over and over again. And when you are done with JAMB, you have to go into school to face the madness. For the past year or so, there's been little or no news from ASUU. But this year, they've come up with a, "Hello, we're still here" message by going on strike. Mind you, I have nothing against unions, but for all that's Holy, there should be some measure of reasonableness when things happen to some sectors. Not Education, not Health, not Security. And even if it has to happen, it should not for so long before things should get corrected. But not in Naija...Doctors strike, Police strike and Universities strike. Not just for a day, or week...it goes for months or so. And we expect the society to thrive?

Dysfunctional! The system looks that way, sometimes. Private Universities are, well, private - made for the middle- and above middle-class who can afford it. Those who wouldn't bother flying their kids outta the country for better schooling send their kids there. But the average Joe cannot send his kid to a private university BECAUSE of the fees. The child will not be able to get a good education, one better than you can get from public funded universities, whether on the Federal or State level so he has to settle for less. Schools aren't producing the right type of graduates any more. You hear people talk about getting admission to school, the conversation is more of a, "Just go in there, do what you have to do, play with the system, when you come out, you don't have to work with what you went in there to study." Graduates come out and they end up with jobs they do not like, things they do not have a passion to do because they have no choice. They just need a job, they need to survive. There is no much contribution into society coming from the graduates of different faculties in the universities. "Engineering, Medicine" and other professional courses in the schools do not bring out people who are ready for the workforce. Our graduates have to go outside Naija for additional training and qualification before they can come home and help, IF they return, that is. Nigerians are running to universities in Ghana, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia (nitori olo'un), just so they can get away from home.

I know this is more like a complaint without much solution being proferred. The thing is, I feel helpless and I do not know where to start effecting any changes from. No reporting mechanism to check what these lecturers do. It starts from there...and even if you try to fix it, you'd be the scapegoat because you are in the almost non-existent minority. You'd never graduate from any other university in Naija. Things happen and then those responsible for the ills get away with it because that is how things have always been, I'm not the one to die and fix it.

Breaking The Habit:

I'm curious on smokers getting addicted to cigs. Other than knowing cigs contain some addictive substance, I don't see what makes it addictive. I know this sounds naïve, but i'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of the matter. The few times I've done it, and heretofore, I've yet to have an urge to go pick up one of those sticks again, unless I'm in the same scenario that even prompted me to do it the first time. So my questions are:

1. Does this addiction happen overtime, with constant exposure?
2. From personal experience: Care to share how long you've been smoking and what actually makes you keep doing it?
3. From personal experience(s): What makes it hard for you [or anyone you may know] to break the habit?


Misc:

I finished reading "Red Cloud's Revenge" today. Good book, met up to expectations, but with the incoming whites gaining ground eventually, but not so easily, it was expected. But it had enough details to raise the hair on my arm. Books have this way of telling stories that watching a screenplay of the same book does not. I'd try to get something else, soon. I guess this year's my year of books as I'm on a campaign to up my reading habits. It's paying off in subtle ways, I can feel.