The Unforseen Compromises in Our Institutions of Learning -By Usama Abdullahi

Besides the sudden unexpected degradation of education in our institutions of learning, moral decadence is on the increase in most of our learning instructions today. I actually don’t need to read the news to understand this. Neither do I have to hear it from others’ mouths to believe that it’s real. Not really. I have seen this myself. Of course I’m a living witness to all sorts of shenanigans being displayed by my fellow students at colleges.

It’s certainly no news to me that most of the students nowadays don’t pay concern to their studies, which I suppose should be their top priority. Evidently most of them are no longer interested in education. You will be utterly amused to learn that many students derive joy in senseless romantic relationships, and not education as you thought.

The truth, as they always say is bitter. But it needs to be plainly spoke out. We can’t continue to live miserably and yet watch our education sector tumble beyond repair. If we allow that to happen we do ourselves no justice. Also, the unborn generations would rise to find nothing good in the future we are trying to build for them.

You see, when I listened to a tape recording of Sheikh Muhammad Bin Uthman, a religious cleric, where he narrated the ugly happenings in our learning institutions, particularly the higher institutions some years ago, I began to wonder how a person will cope up with such dreadful happenings across our institutions. Well, I was equally bemused to have heard him said that his wife was shocked upon sighting the way some girls dressed. She was overwhelmed with shock when she saw them wore indecent clothes which, however, expose some parts of the body which need not to be seen in the public.

His narration was just a summary of the horrible occurrences there in our schools compared to what I knew and heard about from close relatives and associates who go to the colleges. However, there’s nothing to conceal about this. I just graduated from secondary school and I can best tell you what I have experienced there, so far. Indeed, school is lively. And the fun one gets there is beyond expression.

But on the other side, the story is extremely unapt to say the least. The level of disregard for the affairs of the students by the school authorities is truly embarrassing. At certain times you will see outsiders wandering over the school premises in search of female students with whom they would spent the day with or attend parties with. A lot of our secondary schools have sadly turned to avenues for lovers. They meet to consociate and feel secured there more than they do in their respective homes because nobody would be there to stand their way. Nobody gives a damn about them. Teachers look the other way round; foolishly thinking that they have no business with that since those students aren’t their biological children.

One might like to ask what the school management has done or is doing to curb these unbecoming acts. Arguably, some schools do mete out punishment for those caught engaging in such abominable acts. Yet the big problem is, aside the outsiders and students themselves, unfortunately, teachers/ lecturers do often engage in that too. In fact, they do worse than any other persons.

As a head boy at my former school I have lost count of love letters I had received and declined, most of which letters came from my junior ones. To be honest,  I used to be a little bit strict student. Some other junior students misjudged me as being self-opinionated and arrogant. But far from their unfair and baseless misinterpretations of my true character, I was strict because I don’t want to be driven by mere infatuation.

I would overlook and ignore those love letters not because I lacked the devotion to love, but because I wanted them to understand that we were there to learn. Our parents toiled hard just to see us in schools.They spent their hard-earned resources to support us, put their trust in us and believed that we would be the better version of ourselves. So what do you think? Do you suggest I succumb to such inane love offers? There are other students who, on several occasions, made attempts to befriend me. At times I would ignore them too.

You want to know why? I usually do that simply because I have realised that most of them turn your relationships for their own advantages and helplessly dupe you in the end once they achieve their goals. Even so, they use you to defy and violate the school rules and regulations, which is very bad.

This is but few to mention. In some other institutions, students willingly joined cults.Others are persuaded or forced to join, but we if they show unwillingness to join, they get killed in a very gruesome manner. The recent terrible story of Sylvester Oromonia, a 12-year old boy, who was allegedly maltreated to the point of death by his seniors in Dowen college, a boarding school at Lekki, Lagos, is evidence of the rampant cases of abuses in our colleges, boarding schools in particular.

What troubles me the most is the way some girls are sexually harassed by their own teachers/lecturers.This has got to the point where the female students are killed after being violently raped and their bodies discarded or locked up in some obscure places beyond reach. So many of our female students prefer to live at home than to attend colleges because of the rise in the rate of sexual misconduct over there.

A horrible news emerged lately in July this year of a teenage student identified as Karen Happuch Akpagher in Premier Academy at Lugbe, a suburb in Abuja, who was reportedly raped and after she has passed away in the hospital a condom was found inside of her. How bad and scary! If this continues what do you think of the future of our colleges? Until bold measures are taken to bring end to these offensive acts, our colleges would turn to roofs where sexual assault is accommodated or becomes a norm and where our girls would be deflowered and their lives waisted. 

Usama Abdullahi writes from Abuja. He can be reached at usamagayyi@gmail.com