How Do We Address this Decadence? 30 Nov 2011  Bukola.Olatunji@thisdaylive.com I should take a break from ‘Contemporary Challenges in Higher Education’ to draw attention to the ‘contemporary decadence in our education as a whole’. It is not as if we do not know already, but maybe we do not know just how bad it is. A friend posted the comment below on facebook. I think it is most instructive in studying the level of decadence in our education. Let those who want to, continue to argue that “our standard of education has not fallen; it is the scholars that are unable to measure up to the standard.”  The fact is that the competence of those to take over from the present generation of leaders in all spheres of our national life is seriously in doubt. The comment: I watched with dismay and sadness some of the auditions of Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) 2011. We have to declare a state of emergency in our educational sector. It is sad to note that most contestants or aspiring beauty queens were asked the capital of Kebbi State, and 5 out of 7 did not know. One said, the capital of Kebbi State is KOGI, her friend said Douala. One was asked to name the largest city in West Africa, she confidently said NIGERIA. One said her expectation is that she is beautiful, fair, and jovial...the other was asked what is her opinion on foreign aids to Nigeria and Africa. She said "there are many testing clinics now in Nigeria, so foreign aids will not kill Nigerians again"...one was asked to mention and talk about one current female minister. She said Mrs Okonjo Iweala, is the current Prime Minister heading Finance matters. And another was asked who is the governor of CBN, she said "INEC is yet to conduct elections in that state!!! *covering ma face* Some of those who reacted to the above turned out to be birds of a feather. One said:  “dis is no suprise. 70-80% walking d street wit gud cloths, jeweries, cars, fones etc etc. Are not exempted. Take a survey and u ll be suprise. But wat can we do? We nid 2 help, de re mothers, gud wives etc.
 Another one said: “Plz is there anywhere I can get a clips of that video,I really must watch it.” Yet, another howler:  “I'm sure some pple who've commented on this gist doesn't even know the answers...” God help us! Apparently gone are the days when, as a Commonwealth country, we were proud of our heritage of the English Language and some of us were reputed to speak it even better than the owners of the language. Then people sought knowledge, not the vocabulary of the language, but as people read far and wide, they acquired mastery of the language. Today, the ship of education seems to have capsized; grammar has since given way to slang such that our youth suffer from grave grammatical disability; students no longer read to acquire knowledge, but strictly to pass examinations. It is not uncommon these days, in our tertiary institutions, to find so-called students who have not read anything outside their handouts. Not even a novel! Our teachers and lecturers have a lot of blame in this too. For example, an overweight final year student who was rebuked for paying too much attention to her body and looks and little or none to her studies and project, once asked why did she had to trouble herself studying when she knew she could never pass without parting with money. She said to be awarded good marks for project was N5,000, to be awarded good marks in the examinations such that she could gross a second class lower, was N10,000. As expected, all admonition to study for her sake of acquiring knowledge fell on deaf ears. This is the natural consequence of our overemphasis on paper qualification over and above demonstrable ability. I do not know how much of these dry bones can rise again, but I do know we can make a fresh start. Whatever happened to lexis and structure, comprehension and summary, essay writing, current affairs, mental arithmetic and mathematics, and so on? Our youths have stopped learning and assimilating knowledge and until they are forced to come back to doing so, as those before them did, we can only expect, at best, quackery in place of expertise and we might just as well kiss our developmental objectives goodbye. If the foundation is faulty, there is little that one can do subsequently. Do we need again to start the talk about the urgent need to rescue our education, to in fact, declare a state of emergency in that sector? Perhaps if government would adequately furnish public and school libraries with books and fund research, students could, as of recent years gone by, be encouraged to pay regular visits knowing they will find current knowledge and research findings to study.