Re-inventing the Education Model
The VSO, a non-governmental organization which carries out projects on Livelihood, Health, and Education, had carried out a feasibility research on the 432 secondary schools in Katsina State and found out that these schools had nonexistent laboratories and a shortage of science teachers.
VSO an initialism (what you erroneously refer to as ACRONYM) for Voluntary Service Overseas, subsequently invited journalists from the BBC, CCTV, AFP, TVC, Daily Times, African Leadership Magazine and Africa-Ontherise — represented by Kingsley Iweka (winner of the 2016 African Blogger of the year), for an on the ground inspection of a collaborative project between the VSO, PZ Cussons, and the Katsina state government.
“Science on Wheels” is the caption of this project. A van (the mobile lab.) houses the full science laboratory equipment. This van covers about 15 schools and shuttles between these schools on a timetable arrangement. We visited one of the pilot schools, Government Science Secondary School Muduru, Mani L.G.A, a 14 kilometre distance from the Katsina city centre, and I saw firsthand why VSO’s works were truly deserving of praise and how much work needed to be done further.
For the first time in my life, I saw school children who sat on the bare floor to receive lessons, teachers copying notes for SS3 students on a blackboard (in this century?), and the robbery effect of discriminating against the females — an AFP reporter quipped, “wait until you visit the Northeast”.
Apart from a visible lack of infrastructure, there was also the lack of adequate and qualified teachers. I interviewed with a certain Chidera Oduigwe, a graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri(FUTO), Imo state, who was posted to Katsina state for the compulsory post-graduate ritual — NYSC. Chidera, the only Chemistry teacher in this science secondary school told me of his problems here — of course, the standout problem of them all was the language barrier.
As we conversed, many thoughts coursed my mind; what if Chidera had run away after the October 1st threat by some “irresponsible elements” in the country? This fire of ethnicity was ignited by the President and stoked by the Biafran incendiary — Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Here is Chidera, caught up in the state of Pres. Buhari. Anyway, whoever throws stones into a marketplace should be wary of the consequences.
We had a session with Gov. Aminu Masari at the Katsina State Government House. In a characteristic politically ingenious maneuver, he tactfully evaded questions which were aimed at getting a commitment from him for the work the VSO was doing and the infrastructural deficit under his nose — just like politicians, old habits die hard. He talked plenty — his typical garrulous self — and they were all invalid projections and promises.
While travelling back to Abuja, I was troubled. Not just because of what I had seen in Katsina, but because, if Nigeria which prides itself as the giant of africa still has regions trapped in abject poverty and whopping, societal dwarfism, it has inadvertently given a fillip to a passive buildup of the insurgency. This incipient insurgency is to national peril and this peril like wildfire knows no bound. This model of the insurgency is such that will make the activities of the Boko Haram a child’s play.
