Education and Our Value System

So I was conversing with one of my younger friends yesterday in church and it got me thinking about the link between our education system and the kind of value system we expect to see in the society. She is a girl of about 17 who wrote her WASSCE last year and is planning on writing UTME next year. Basically the conversation started with her refusal of a leadership position in church and spiraled into her education and she made some statements that eventually gave birth to this article. Okay enough of the introduction, let's get to the main point.

We all would believe with me that education is very important in the production of a functional societal system. The quality of any society with respect to morals and values are a function of the quality of its education system both formal and informal. If the schools are breeding low quality individuals, then we'll only have a low quality society.

So we were discussing her career choices when I asked her best subject and she said she doesn't know. That's when I asked about the subject she doesn't like and she said "mathematics". Before I could say anything, she added 'but I had an A in WAEC though'. When I asked if she cheated to get an A, she replied in the affirmative, and in her words 'it's normal thing na'. That was the first phrase that caught my attention.

Then we continued talking and then she started telling me about her exams and how it went. That's when she told me about the student who was her bail out during the exams, the one person she would always go to to confirm her answers in the exams hall, because in her words 'he was the only boy that had sense, the other ones just copy rubbish'.

Now those two sentences got me really thinking.

Firstly, why is it a normal thing to cheat in exams?

If we have people who see it as normal to cheat in exams, how do we expect to have a society of honest people?.

The most heartbreaking part of it is that these children are already exposed to such vices at such a young age and are made to believe that it's a normal and acceptable thing. These children will then grow up with the mentality that it is right to cheat, and this will influence them in the future.

Even the Bible states "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it". So when we train this children to be cheats at such young age, we shouldn't expect them to turn out different in the future and miraculously become better individuals. It's the values that we sell to them at a young age that they'll trade with in the future. Our society is miserable because we've made our children believe at a very young age that being smart is your ability to circumvent due process.

Going to the second part where there's only one boy that has sense. That made me heartbroken because it's mostly true. I've engaged a lot with some of our young ones especially the ones in secondary schools and many of these boys can't construct simple sentences. They can't solve simple equations and some can't even spell their names correctly. It begs the question of what our teachers are doing in our schools.

Funny enough most of these children have phones and know the lyrics to all the trending songs with the artist's name and dance moves. So how is it possible that they can memorize all these lyrics but can't recite simple time tables?. There's only one answer to that, it's because they know they can cheat and pass, and get away with it. They are sometimes even encouraged to cheat by those who are supposed to know better.

I remember when I was writing my WAEC, our biology teacher had been transfered and a new teacher sent to our school one term before the exams. Unfortunately for us this man was totally clueless about the subject. He'd just come to class, ask us to open our textbooks to the topic he was going to teach that day. He'd start by asking questions about the topic and whatever a student replied as the answer, he'd just shout 'that's correct'. If two students had differing views about a particular issue, he'd give it to us as assignment to find out the right thing.

This continued for a whole term till the exams and it was this same teacher that sold fake exam answers for the exams to us. That year many students had to change their career choices because of biology. This begs the question of the quality of teachers in our schools.

The truth is that true education is in the primary and secondary level, tertiary education is mostly individual research. So if a student fails to learn what he's supposed to learn at the primary and secondary level then there's no need for tertiary as it's a waste of time and resources.

The Bible says that "whatever you sow, that shall you reap". We can't be breeding thieves and crooks and expect to have a society of virtuous men and women. The different vices that are plaguing our society are a function of the value systems we have imbibed in our children over time.

It shows in our everyday lives, the petty thieves, armed robbers, burglars, crooks, scammers, liars and above all corrupt public officials popularly known as politicians. These people are just a mirror of what our society has become. And they engage in these vices because we've made them believe that they can get away with it.

Up untill we learn to instill good morals in our children from cradle and teach them virtues, we'll continue to suffer the effects of whatever they'll become in the future. Education of all forms starts from home and our parents need to start creating more time for their children instead of leaving them to the mercies of househelps. These children need to feel loved and appreciated, they need to cultivate good humanitarian values in them for the sake of our future.

Our education system should also be given adequate attention and required upgrade from the teaching staff to the facilities to aid learning and better education for our children and the community at large. Serious punishments should be met out on defaulting students anytime they break the rules to serve as deterrent to others. In all our children should be showed love and affection, because that's the only way they'll learn to give it too.

I hope that we get to the point where our education system matches and instills the Value systems that we expect to see in our society.

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