I am very delighted to share this very important occasion with you to discuss a very crucial subject that is of high relevance to the regeneration of our country. I am grateful to the organisers, the Lagelu Grammar School Founder’s Day Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present the lecture at this distinguished event. Our deliberation today is especially pertinent because matters of value system, morals, discipline and revitalisation of such are at the centre of the goals and objectives of education.
“Education” is derived from the Latin words e-ducere and educare. While educare means to “nourish, to bring up”, educere on the other hand means “to lead out”. Put together, education infers the deliberate process through which the innate potential of individuals or a people are developed in order to assist the society to move from mediocrity and limitations into enlightenment and development. Through education, a society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another. Similar to societal evolution, education has, over time, evolved from being a mere tool of socialisation into a veritable tool through which the society not only preserves its cherished values, but also surmounts challenges that hinder the good life. It is this active engagement of challenges that has birthed and still motivates new innovations and inventions.
I must, however, quickly note that I applied discretion or some arbitrariness in reframing the topic of this lecture. This was informed by the need to put in a more contemporary perspective the challenges facing our value system with regards to what obtains in our schools and as they concern our children – the students – in particular.
The structure of the topic the organisers gave me, which is: “The Dereliction of Morals and Incisive Discipline in the Nigerian Educational System: A Call for Reappraisal and the Categorical Imperatives of Rebuilding our Value System towards inclusive Qualitative Education for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Society,” also seems to cover students at all levels of education, like from the primary to higher institutions. I, however, also decided to focus on secondary school students.
By the virtue of my position and experience as a lecturer and now a vice chancellor, many of you are likely to expect me to focus on university students. But I have tried hard to think and act otherwise, based on the strategic position that secondary education plays in our academic equation. For one, I believe that the foundation of what many students will become and exhibit in universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and higher institutions is laid in secondary schools. Besides, in terms of the moral challenges we are facing, most of the syndromes in higher institutions have crept into secondary schools – public and private.
And why the Internet/Social Media perspective? The reason is that there is hardly any policy, programme, challenge etc. that you want to critically examine now that will not have an online perspective. The digital phenomenon is one of the best things that have happened to the world, but we also know it is the most delicate. It is making us, our prayer is that it will not mar us. How can we talk about moral decadence in any society now, and at any level, without considering the role played by the Internet or the role we make it to pay?
The problems, the dilemmas
Internet/social media
The threats against our value system is legion: disrespect for dignity of labour, get-rich-quick syndrome, rape and other forms of sexual licentiousness, fraud/Yahoo Yahoo, examination malpractice, cultism, indecent dressing etc. Before the spread of the digital media, most of these and other related vices had been with us. But the expansion of the social platforms has made them more intriguing to handle. All of the vices, like the good things, are massively online, meaning that it is easier for the learners to imbibe them with little or nothing their parents can do.
The digital age is theirs, not ours. It does not discriminate, it does not hide. Things that our culture and tradition used expose to the young systematically are made open to whoever cares to click.
Curious enough, the students (our children) know what we don’t know, they do not need to be taught. That is why when you buy a phone today, you may end up not mastering up to 25 per cent of its features no matter how long you use it. Yet, it takes your children little or no time before they master every nook and cranny of the device. How then do you reconcile/control the values and vices that the digital technology massively represents? The tendency is for one to feel helpless at times. I will come back to how I believe we can go around the behemoth.
The other side of the entertainment industry
The penetration of the entertainment industry and its allures is also compounding the moral crisis we face in schools. The industry, like the Internet, is addictive. Of course, a lot of the entertainment products are nor transmitted online, giving unfettered access to all and sundry, including the youth. And based on the rapid growth the sector is experiencing, many of them are falling for its allures even from a distance or at the expense of other values they should imbibe. The time many of them should spend reading, do their homework and advance their knowledge, they are more ‘wired’ to listen to music or watch musical videos. With little or no talent, many students want to be musicians nowadays – no matter what they are studying even if in higher institutions. One is not saying that those who are talented should not be encouraged to develop it, or that they should not be encouraged to discover such. Also, we should not blindly impose careers on them. No, but I am saying there is a problem in a situation almost every pupil wants to become a musician, comedian or footballer. Apart from the uncertainties waiting in the future, it means that such students will not take their studies seriously.
As a result, reading culture is very poor. We genuinely lament that many of our schools lack standard libraries. Yet, where there are, what is the disposition of the students to reading? Unfortunately, the issue of the friendly demon called the Internet comes in again. The learners who are supposed to be studious, reading to complement what the teachers are imparting are trapped either by television or the new media. This is apart from the fact that they are also imbibing some of the immoral tendencies that entertainment culture flaunts.
Vanity heroes
Another aspect of the dilemma is that our students now choose their mentors and heroes from vanity sectors. ‘Vanity’ here does not necessarily indicate that any particular sector is vain or unworthy, but people who used to be traditionally societal idols and heroes do not appeal to the majority of our youths anymore. How many of them see models in accomplished accountants, lawyers, writers, doctors etc. the way we used to? Rather, some musicians, athletes and, God forbid, social misfits who command money with questionable sources are their heroes. In other words, values are down when it comes to what inspires many of them.
Cultural gap
But this is not to say the blame is entirely that of our children and youths. Indeed, like the prevertebral k-legged man carrying a load in a zigzag or slanted manner, saying people should watch his legs before they blame him, we the elders are directly and indirectly the architects of the dilemmas. Our culture used to provide efficient and long-lasting checks and balances but we have failed to inculcate it into our children. Nigeria’s development has largely and foolishly been at the expense of our culture, which is getting eroded too fast. For anyone culturally brought up, respect for elders is given. He or she knows what to say or do in the public and is scared of the consequence of not handling such appropriately. In Yorubaland, for example, the Omoluwabi culture ought to be sacrosanct but we have failed to transfer it into our educational system. As we pursue western culture and the new religions, we throw the baby away alongside the bathwater. So, the young ones are bound to think and grow astray because we have denied them the vital values of cultural orientation. Curiously, social media is filling the gap, though in an ambivalent and almost uncontrollable way.
Consider the issue of sexual escapades among the young. There was a time our culture emphasised the need to remain virgin until marriage. Reservation and restraint were then the order of the day because of the anathema that awaited whoever failed to keep herself (girls especially). But, right now, we don’t even know what we believe or hold in terms of pre-marital sex. It is in the mist of this oral dilemma that we are bringing up the next generations.
Language gap
Some of the threatened values are not directly about morality. They are academic or intellectual. One of the crises our education is facing nowadays, for instance, is that many Nigerian graduates cannot speak correct English. We say they are not marketable, and we moan that they cannot write application letters correctly. Truly speaking, it is a big problem because no matter how much content has been stuffed in you, if you cannot communicate your idea effectively, you are not far from being illiterate. If a graduate can manifest such a problem, you can imagine what obtains at the secondary school level. Well, it is the faulty foundation from the primary and secondary schools that becomes the burden in the tertiary institution because language is a systematic phenomenon. The point I am making here is that there is a value crisis in our educational institutions as far as the mastery of English, which is the language of unity, education, business and other relations, is concerned. Ironically, there are a lot of online resources that can help the old and young in terms of the need to always improve on our spoken and written English (and also other useful languages such as French, German, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa etc.) But only too few people are drawn to such resources.
Cultism, examination malpractice, rape, ritual killing
Each of these vices is so rampant that one is supposed to treat them one by one, break it down and produce a thesis on it. But I have brought them together because I am sure we all know they bedevil our schools and our youths in general. Cultism used to be identified with universities and other higher institutions alone, but it has crept into secondary schools. It shouldn’t be too much a surprise because in a school where you have cultist teachers or non-academic staff, infiltration among students is a possibility. This is apart from the fact that some boys and girls are enticed by money while others cannot control the tendency or adventures, just as there are various cult groups operating in the larger society. As a matter of fact, it is difficult it is very difficult to draw a line among cultists, kidnappers, bandits, insurgents, armed robbers and ritual killers.
Exam malpractice is also fast assuming the status of an industry. That is why it is difficult to kill it in our schools. Laziness, desperation on the part of student is a factor. Teachers who make money from the practice are fuelling it. Schools that want good results by all means are a culprit. At the same time, some parents get so desperate that they collude with their children to commit malpractice. Last year, a man was caught in Abuja writing the UTME for his child! What do all of these tell us? Our children are largely what we are or what we make them to be.
Sometimes last year too, a group of secondary school pupils were caught in the street gang-raping some girls in Lagos. You know why? They were said to be celebrating the completion of their secondary education. There have been others who outright rape fellow pupils, while media reports also indicate that some young boys did rape older women, including the aged. Are we surprised? We shouldn’t be. Rape is rife in our society. Teachers, imams, pastors, fathers are being caught in rape sagas. Indeed, the rate at which some evil men are being caught raping their daughters is alarming, so that you begin to ask: what is actually happening?
Ways out to eliminate quagmire
Give the students Internet Education
Since the students catch some of these vices on the Internet and social media, we should, as a matter of policy, intergrade digital knowledge into our curriculum. The reason is that we will be able to give them grounding and focus on the positive values of the Internet. They need to know how to research on subjects that will elevate them intellectually, morally and creatively. But if we just leave them to blindly jump into the ocean of the confoundingly diverse materials online, they are likely to get addicted to negativity. Likewise, parents should take interest in what their children surf, what they watch online; the music they listen to and films they watch. It is hardly possible to completely keep your phone away from your children just as you cannot help buying it for them when the time is ripe or it. But we should find ways of knowing what they do with the device. They need our counselling, they need our guide.
Too much fraud is perpetrated online. The Yahoo Yahoo fraud ‘business’ has become an albatross on the neck of our country, and younger students are also being indoctrinated by more advanced ones. Every right-thinking person should, as a matter of fact, be scared by the growing waves of Yahoo Yahoo. Each time suspects are arrested in groups – groups that can be up to 6, 8, 10 or more – I get stunned, embarrassed and scared. And I believe all of us should. Recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said it arrested 200 suspected Yahoo Yahoo boys last October alone.
Strengthen history, provide financial education
If we have to face the fact, some of the crises we face in our schools cannot be completely rooted out. But they can be managed or turned into positive trends. One of such is that associated with the entertainment industry revolution. Since we agree that it is gulping much of the time of many students, we should try to balance it with training on other vital areas the students may not have been paying attention to. Among such is entrepreneurial and financial education. This will provide a kind of balance in their orientation, to the extent that some of them can also begin to see the business side of the music, soccer or comedy they are getting addicted to.
Culture, history and religious education
We need to reinforce the curriculum with contents relating to history, culture, indigenous languages and religious studies. The more we try to run away from these values, the more we land in the mud of immorality. Our cultures and our language are, for instance, like our shadows. Yet, we keep trying to divorce them. When all the chips are down, these are what will keep the students in check. It is good that the Federal Government has brought back the teaching of History in our schools, but are we truly entrenching it? This is a question that should prick the conscience of all stakeholders.
There was a time that when you wanted to do something wrong, even as a child, you would just remember a Yoruba proverb and you would drop the idea. Or you could want to do it in a way but eventually do it in another way upon remembering the wisdom in particular proverb. As Yoruba proverbs helped in this regard, so did those of Hausa, Igbo, Efik and many other ethnic groups. Today, our children do not have the benefit of exposure to such proverbs – and some other vital aspects of our cultures and languages. This is as a result of the fact that whether at home or school, they do not have the opportunity to acquire the values. We should acknowledge this as a problem and take steps to break the barriers. Just consider what will happen to our culture and language in the next 20, 30 and 50 years when those we have refused to pass the legacy onto will become the fathers of their own children!
Let us fashion out new ways to teach our history, cultures and languages. Let the schools and other relevant groups introduce projects and programmes that will awaken students’ interests in our heritage. It is good for continuity and it is good for taming the wrong values.
Strengthen discipline
Schools should strengthen discipline and adopt a strong punishment mechanism for vices. As we pursue the long-term and persuasive methods, we should also evoke the rules that can bring sanity in schools. Rules and regulations should be made ambitious and clear – and made known to every student right from the day he or she is admitted. This is what is done in the university and it is never too late to make such available in secondary schools too. I do not want to bring up the controversial issue of using canes on pupils or students. It was the order of the day in our own time but it is no more encouraged. What is important is that the school, the teacher should fashion out a way to correct, reprimand and punish the errant student in a way that will be corrective and effective.
Teachers’ commitment
To achieve any turn-around, teachers’ commitment is crucial. As a matter of fact, it takes a disciplined teacher o produce a disciplined student. A good teacher should be a master of his or her subject. But that is not enough. He should also be a true master in the moral class. Therefore, to refine our school system, we must first refine our teachers. Well, they must refine themselves.
There is a need for a revolution in our educational system, but it is the teachers that can really lead the drive. Government must chart the course; stakeholders should come in; but, ultimately, it is teachers, alongside the management and non-academic staff, that can really turn things round. Perhaps the biggest role we need to pay as government and society is to provide an enabling environment for them to function. A major part of this is the need to pay them well, if possible, radically well, so that they can effect the radical change. In a country like Finland, teachers are among the highest paid workers in the league of health workers and the police. Germany also rates the services of its teachers the highest, and pays them accordingly. What level do we keep our own teachers on the salary scale? Is it not possible to change things dramatically knowing the radical growth we are bound to experience if we do so?
Kill corruption
As I conclude this lecture, I want to return to the proverbial first that shall be the last. That is the nagging question of corruption. We must appreciate the reality that immorality is spreading among our youths primarily because corruption is shattering the fabrics of our society. There is too much stealing – official and non-official – in our country. We have tolerated corruption so much that it has penetrated everywhere and is sinking the ship of the country. If we do not rise against it because of ourselves, we must do so because of our children. After what we had considered as gains in the fight against corruption in recent years, the latest Transparency International rating says Nigeria from 144 to 148 of the 180 corrupt countries considered. Such rating alone cannot be the yardstick, yet we cannot ignore it. The bitter truth is that a society cannot remain this corrupt and expect its children to be saints and angels. Our children are watching us, our children are studying us and they know everything going on. Put differently, we are destroying their innocence and turning their visions and minds into a den of vices by doing what we do not want them to do. Ladies and gentlemen, let us resolve to jettison corruption if we want our children to exude the positive values we are missing in schools.
Thank you, and God bless.
. Prof. Ayobami Salami, Vice Chancellor, First Technical University, Ibadan, delivered this lecture at the Founder’s Day of Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan, Oyo State on January 27, 2020.
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