NEW SESSION, WHAT WILL CHANGE?

School bells that have gathered dust for the past few months are being cleaned up. Excited mothers and children parade the shopping centres and markets in search of the perfect school bags and socks. Booksellers are prepared to smile to the bank.

Every September provokes feelings in all stakeholders in primary and secondary education in Nigeria. It reminds some of a fresh round of school fees payments; others long anxiously for their new class mates, new class teachers, and wonder if so and so “will be in my class”; some others see the continuation of their work routine. September is here again and the school bells won’t let it slip by.

As schools reopen, there is a showcase of the results of renovation efforts and infrastructural improvements that have taken place during the long vacation. The smell of fresh paint and that of the newness that comes with new furniture and new equipment, fill the air in many primary and secondary schools.  Is everything really new?

Despite the jamborees and prize giving day fiestas that characterize the end of a session in primary and secondary schools in Nigeria, the sector continues to receive negative reviews from almost every quarter. As at the end of last session in July this year, the story was the same. Standards were said to be fallen. Examination malpractice was an issue, too big to be ignored. There were still quite a number of unregistered private schools, teaching what they liked. There were schools that lacked the most basic infrastructural requirements such as desks for the pupils/students, proper classrooms, laboratories, amongst others. There were clear reports that many teachers were half baked and lackadaisical. The fact that many pupils/students had lost interest in the good old act of reading was also glaring.

This September, are all these set to change? Will some resume and discover that the days of schooling under a tree are over? Are teachers and educators ready with brilliant plans of how to get their pupils/students back to the reading table?

Someone once said “It is foolishness to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result” It follows therefore that if all the concerned parties have done is close the chapter in July only to return to it in September with the same pen, paper and ideas; nothing will change and the history of negative reviews will continue.

There is definitely need for changes in the way primary and secondary education operates in Nigeria and a new session should offer tremendous opportunity for such changes to be effected. As I wish all pupils, students, teachers, parents, guardians and all other stakeholders a successful academic year, I ask “New session, what will change?”