BEFORE YOU SAY HALF-BAKED GRADUATE !

    I used to visualise my lecturers as geniuses and demi-gods back then, marvelling at how someone writes a textbook so full of knowledge, until I searched "encarta" one fateful day, while trying to find solution to an assignment, and right there, I discovered that one of my course textbook was dubbed directly from there. Still, it claimed to be written by my lecturer who has bagged himself a doctorate degree. Some others manage to publish pamphlets with little content that can pass as the handwork of a nursery school pupil, and still sell them to us at ridiculous high prices. Buying them may not appear compulsory, but an invisible gun called "AR"(Awaiting Result), points at the head of every defaulter who refuse to purchase these absurd materials.
One could carry over this problem to his final year if not careful. We were made to read and cram these sometimes obsolete copied work in order to pass. No one cares if you understand it anyway. Little wonder, scripts can't be marked without "strict" marking scheme that do not give room for synonymic answers, it just have to correlate with those written in the textbook. Your ideas are only relevant within the four walls of the lecture room when everyone is bored. Trying a new way that yields the same result in the exam hall is suicidal, a well carved out F9 in red awaits you ! 

   Our institutions themselves do not seem to help matters. I remember drawing most of my biology diagrams on my fellow students' back during my fresh man year. Fifty or more of us would surround one stupid cockroach killed by the wrath of an angry broom and mercilessly reduced to the size of a mosquito. Still, we were judged by the strict rules guiding biology drawings. How my muslim sisters used to faint under the heat after sniffing enough body odour from the atmosphere, because the so-called practical laboratory would be full to the brim. Angry faces everywhere, bottles of formalin lying-in-state, intoxicating odour that can raise the dead would fill the air. Farting under those conditions only attract generational curses from the lips of angry, sweating, hungry and fagged out folks who are at the brink of breaking their endurance limits. Falling victim to the vocal annointing of Ibadan ladies at this moment is deadly, they'll send one to hell without burial!.

   The lecture hall itself is another thing to behold. Half the class won't hear what the lecturer is babbling on the podium, writings on the board have to be viewed from under a microscope, and the public address system seldom work. Project periods are even worse, the right time to discover who really knows what he lectures. Only few know what they teach, I mean say, its often speeches and voice notes from textbooks. We were machines operating on a routine system, how pathetic !

   Suffice to say, not all the lecturers enjoy being in the classroom. We were the regular victims and recipients of resultant sparks that emanate when frustration and unfulfillment clash within them. I can't deny the fact that there are some who carry the glow of passion whenever they mount the podium, these are the few who really teach, and are fulfilled when you pass their courses. Why? They enjoy what they do and are committed to it. They differ from the academic demons that get their pride from students' mass failure and still brag about it in the covens of their offices.

   Nowadays, I've learnt to appreciate the creative work of 'play-wrights, poets, journalists, excellent song lyricists, novelists and others' the more. Transforming thoughts, imaginations and experiences into writings filled with originality, believe me, is no easy task. 

   A lecturer was lecturing in class and asked for other examples of gases found in the atmosphere, my course mate, out of sheer boredom replied, Fabregas ! Easy sir, you just happened to have a sport analyst imprisoned in your class. Its enough rape to alter the path of students who are forced to accept fate and love the product of an altered admission offered them, thereby wasting time and other resources in the field of unfulfillment, studying courses they never opted for, and are not even built for. But when the diligent scale through, be humble enough to thumb them up for a job well done, even if there's scarcity of wood and glass to produce them awards. Its easy to suggest that the undesired admission be declined, but many years of tears were spent on queue in "Traffic Jamb" before the first offer showed up. So, when the desirable is not available, the available becomes desirable.

   The education system is now a business platform, negating its original intent of dispensing affordable, up-to-date theoretical/practical knowledge and skills. 

   After school is another period of stress, there's hardly any organisation that recruits without requiring experience, with five years as the common request. Makes me wonder if its plucked from a tree ! How does one get it without a platform to start from? No one is born experienced !. Little wonder, a lot of frustrated souls storm the street, branding themselves as C.E.Os, plunging into businesses chosen out of frustration, with no passion and little or no training to sustain them.

   It hurts when people who find themselves in the seat of authority, most of whom cannot compose an opening speech by themselves, then open their anus, and release statements like "half-baked graduates". No one plants beans and reap rice even though they are served together in the dinning halls of many restaurants. It would be fair to say students have their own contribution to the breakdown of the academic system via laziness, bribery, incompetence and sheer neglect, but a plantation shouldn't be judged for low yield when the nutrient needed for excellence were insufficiently made available. Half-made institutions will produce half-baked graduates ! The fast pace in which we live does not allow for thorough due-diligence and proper fact finding expeditions and its high time we slowed down.

   Shout out to the students who still excel in their various discipline despite the setbacks and challenges involved. Thumbs up to the graduates who still make impact in the after-school world, those who refuse to rest on their oars but keep steering the wheels, pay day is near. 

   My heart reach out in deep respect to the few teachers who love what they do, who are diligent in dispensing knowledge, and whose utmost desire is to see their students succeed. Your reward isn't in Heaven alone, it starts here.

   To the rulers of the educational system, the hurt from wearing an under-sized shoe shouldn't be taken out on the feet. Reminiscing on the ninth paragraph helps curb the reckless utterance of half-baked graduates speech, when the foundational change is yet to be made !

This article is copyrighted. Please do not reproduce in part or whole, in any form, without obtaining my written permission. Thank you.