Sacked Kaduna Teachers: What’s Wrong With Having Standards? By Olumide Aduloju | The Precision

As usual, I took a danfo to work today. What was unusual was that this was not like any other danfo. It was spacious, had enough leg room, had comfortable stuffed seats not those wooden panels that goes as seats in other danfos. 

I wasn’t sitting anywhere close to the windows but I still got enough air. Mind, we were sitting the normal four in a row. The ambience was great and I wasn’t rushing to get down for a breath of fresh air. I was so shocked that on getting to my destination, I had to stand to have a second look at the danfo, comparing it with others plying the same route. It wasn’t different in any way I can see. It was the same size, the same shape, the same colour. But how come it was different, I thought to myself. 

I came to the simple realization that the only difference was that the owner of the bus didn’t dumb it down because it is Nigerians using it, or because it was for public use. As it happened, the owner simply decided to keep the original seats rather than removing them for those annoying wooden ones. That simple act made all the difference. I hope he continues to leave them like that. 

And this brings me to the school of thought that aside from the failures of government, Nigerians appear to be the architect of their own problems. Why is it a bad thing for Nigerians to get the minimum standard for anything? Why do we have to dumb things down because Nigerians are the ones using it?

Many people, including a legislator have come out to blame the Kaduna state government for retrenching teachers who failed a primary 4 exam. I’m sure this same legislator and the  Nigerians who have decided to squeeze as much political capital from the issue as they can do not have their children in these schools. Else, why would anyone want such obviously incapable teachers teaching their kids? How can teachers who failed a primary 4 test even have the conscience to protest and hold a placard that says “Examination is not the real test of knowledge”. The fact that they can even make a statement like that without committing any murderous blunder is a minor miracle. 

It’s high time Nigerians realised that they deserve the minimum standard in anything. It doesn’t matter if it is for public use or not. You can’t, on one hand, be flogging the government for the crappy standard of our education and in another be berating someone who is trying to do something about it, no matter how little.

It is also high time Nigerians prioritised the right things in their politics. I remember the racket that greeted the controversy of hijab in public schools in Osun and Lagos states. I also remember how people got emotional when the news filtered in that the government has decided to combine the religious subjects. Most people were more concerned about whether their religions were well represented in the schools and less about the quality of education the students were getting. 

We must learn as a people to embrace real change and demand for the minimum standard both from those who rule us and from ourselves.

Aduloju writes in from Lagos.