A History of Education: Between Nostalgia and Reality

In my early years in school, primary school started at 7.30am and ended by 12.30pm; leaving plenty of time to have lunch at home, get through my homework, take the about 10 minutes hike to the local library to borrow new comic books or climb the mango tree behind my house to try my hands at plucking the sun out of the sky; cook rice and sauce on a pretend fire (backyard soil with no ants made for good rice and bougainvillea flowers mashed in water with a few pieces of sticks made a good sauce), have a good wash, then get through the daily English or Math exercise my mother had left me for the day- all this, before 4pm when my mother the spoil sport would return from work.

This was the time when history, geography, sports, singing classes, library periods and arts and crafts were a part of the school program not matters that are constantly under negotiation for space on the time-table. I still remember the time I spent molding clay in school, spraying patterns of colors on canvass and breaking off crayons for fun in arts class in the name of drawing. Then singing time, oh how I loved it! We were taught loads of songs and we sang cheerily. My favorite song in nursery was;

“The e ber so o me e e to o hol e wedding in amo de tree so gri fiddi lalala fiddi lalala fiddi lala lala la a”- as delivered by the dandy “Little Ones” class. A few years later while in upper primary and still singing, my nursery song had developed to;

“The birds all met to hold a wedding in among the trees so green, fiddi lalala...” Beautiful song, beautiful times. My mom was certain singing songs and hymns helped with vocabulary, grammar and phonetics. I think she was right about this one but it didn’t matter, I just loved the singing bit of school and kept my “singing exercise book” well.

In these times, the Middle School system was still running minimally; six years of primary education and 4 years pre-secondary education – an absurd colonial shackle. Many schools were turning to the program in fashion; the one that led to the Common Entrance Exam at the end of 6 years of primary education, Ordinary Level Certificate at the end of 5 years of secondary education and Advanced Level Certificate at the end of an additional 2 years of secondary education. From then on it was university all the way.

Extra classes in schools did not exist; you either made it with the formal school time available or you were probably too dense to be helped anyway. Much later kids with learning or more aptly exam passing challenges were put to private extra tuition after school by parents. These situations were rare and had nothing to do with school time because generally there was no question about the adequacy of the school time to cover the syllabus.

I recall my brother and his friends making fun of someone they claimed had been to collect his Common Entrance results with a basket from the West African Examination Council (WAEC) offices.  What they meant was that the fellow had scored 9s, 8s, 7s so instead of the expected say six ones which gave a single digit aggregate (no pun intended); the poor fellow needed a basket because he had to carry an aggregate of 45. Actually his aggregate was about 20. Still this was simply unbelievable and hilarious for the young devils in the late 1970s or early 80s. People like the hapless young man with the basket had to repeat their exam class and for the O’ Level exam, return to 4^th or 5^th year in a mainstream school to re-write the exam. Special schools for re-writing examinations had yet to materialize.

In the mid 80s a few famed schools started organizing classes during the long vacations (June to August). I attended once after much pleading with my parents, citing what most youngsters offered as justification for attending the classes – the schools had the best teachers and tended to teach stuff that was invaluable for passing the O’ and A’ level examinations. My experience did not really support that justification but then again I never was a good learner in class. It seemed to me most kids wanted a forum to socialize and the schools (teachers) had found a niche for making extra money. On hindsight, probably there was a real need.

By the time I was readying for university, late 1980s that is, the country’s educational system had seen a bit of a turn. The Junior and Senior Secondary School, now Junior and Senior High (JSS and SSS) system was in place.

In primary schools, geography, history and the likes gave way to social studies and religious and moral studies. Singing and library periods went out the window and sports or games had become synonymous with football where it existed. No more Common Entrance Examinations; after year six pupils shot straight into Junior Form One on the basis of some dodgy continuous assessment system. Most significantly schools started around 7.30 am or 8 am and ended anytime between 3pm and 4pm. Lunch was no more possible at home and all the things I did after school in my primary school days was not possible. You know, little time for personal reading of just “stuff”, climbing trees, socializing with neighborhood kids etc. It is said the extra hours were necessary for “extra-curricular” activities or extra lessons. I have never quite understood that, being “old school” and all. I mean in my time the games or sports and extra-curricular activities did not require extra time and we still got through the syllabus! Besides, the time between getting home from school and mother returning from work was kids’ prime time in which important life’s lessons were learned!

The new system also meant Inter-College (inter-co) sporting showdowns with all the “jama” suffered setbacks in secondary schools because the 7 year system was replaced with a 2-tier 6 year system; the first 3 effectively taken out of the boarding system and annexed to primary level education.

I carried out my then mandatory one year national service before university in these times. My task was to teach French and English in a public JSS only 30 minutes drive from the country’s capital. After my first week, there was mutual consent between all stakeholders (myself and the JSS1 and 2 kids I was to teach) that my purpose was ill-defined. This was because except for about 3 “out of place” students the rest were starkly illiterate. I mean they could not so much as recognize the alphabet!

I spent the entire year of national service teaching the Junior Secondary forms one and two students the alphabet and to read!

Much later and closer to now the landscape has an interesting character; nurseries and kindergartens have waiting lists for taking in little ones some of whom are yet to be conceived.

5-year old kids write exams and formally pass out of kindergarten in graduation ceremonies that universities could learn from.

Remedial schools; schools that are usually targeted at the Senior High School level examination and cater to those students who have failed to make grades good enough to take them to the next level, are increasing so fast that they will soon overtake mainstream schools by their numbers.

Almost all privately established schools have rebelled against the public school system at the primary level and turned back to systems somewhat similar to my type of primary education. Only this time they are labeled differently; “International”, “Montessori”, yadah yadah yadah and claim to run the British or American system which the average middle class citizen prefers (and can afford) for their kid.  

“University colleges” are springing up all over; many of them resembling corner shops.

Many public schools are scoring 0% (is there such a thing?) in the Junior High School examinations. Now this is not surprising, my students in my national service days were bound to do similarly but I never dared to check  

So what accounts for this trajectory in our (non-) education system? I am looking somewhere between the curricula and teaching methods; school hours and effective performance monitoring and appropriate resources of course and I am still smarting at the absence of MY early years experiences in schools.