Depending from where you look at it.
Education one could say starts from the day a child is born
and ends with life, this is actually true because learning to feed, walk, talk
and improving of cognitive senses all takes place from the first second in a child’s
birth. These initial learning curves are usually thought by parents, guardians,
relatives or in some cases legal appointed guardians and in some cases these initial
learning curves comes in full circle
between the ages of four to seven years of a child´s growing circle, at the
completion of these initial learning which takes place in the comfort of the child’s
home surrounded by loved ones.
Upon completion of the initial stage of learning the child
then moves on to the next learning stage which is then not (in majority of cases)
taught by learned professionals in the educational field, at this stage
children are taught to assembly and reassembling of their individual cognition.
Children at the second stage of learning are taught to identify things like
numbers, plans, animals and so forth.
Most countries demand education to be compulsory for
children between a stipulated age range, in fact education is theoretically compulsory
all over the world for children but however, the age range at which it is
compulsory has its own geolocational dependency which could be social,
religious, gender or even culturally related depending on the region in
question.
In most western countries governments invest great efforts
to make schooling a pleasant by providing cheap affordable transport systems
for students, security during school starting and ending hours, providing clean
and quiet learning environment for the students, access to classes online and
so forth, while the opposite is the case of most developing countries. The
educational system in some of these developing countries is so stressful and
bad that children living in western countries can not even begin to imagine.
I once had a presentation on education in the developing
world at an high school in Berlin, when I started showing pictures and playing
some short video clips on the activities that normal children in developing
countries go through on a daily basis just to receive education, to my surprise,
the children present in my presentation were overwhelmed with sorrow, tears and
disbelief that in this day and age children still suffer to be educated.
As a case study let´s take Nigeria, with an upward of about 32.6
million new entry to primary schools each year Nigeria has over 65.9
million students, I must point out that the
total number of students or children within school age in Nigeria is more than
the total population of Greece, Czech
Republic, Portugal, Hungary and Austria combined together.
Children within the school ages in Nigeria have to, on a
daily basis contend with the fear of kidnapping, robbery, rape, molestation,
abuse, even in some cases scolding by teachers, parents and those who they should
grow to love and respect. I travelled to Lagos State Nigeria just to have a
first hand experience on the challenges faced by Nigerian students.
In my quest for understanding, I undertook interviews of two
students from each school levels, namely , Primary, Secondary, and University
levels, the interview which I had with the students all point to concerns
expressed by the students, for example, while speaking to one of the Primary
students (10 years old) I notices that he was not really focused on my
questions, I paused questioning then asked him, what is on your mind Emmanuel ?
he replied, I we have food home when I get
home because I last ate yesterday noon but in the night there was no food and
morning also.
After hearing these words, I decided to take a new
questioning approach so that I could hear the information raw and not
structured by my line of questioning. When I met the Primary school girl (10
years old) I began my questioning her with asking of her aspirations and dreams
for her future, sure she began with my much-anticipated response of unadulterated
positivity about the best jobs in life and wealth.
When I observed the brightness in her face and sensed a
fairly good atmosphere of trust, then I asked, what is really in your mind?
what do you worry about? She had like
some few minutes of pulse and then she answered , my mother has a restaurant so
every day after school I go straight to her business and there I must wash the
dishes and clean, it makes me very tired in the evening that I can not even
learn when we get home, even sometimes I cannot even make my homework.
The high birth rate in Nigeria have also given rise to ramshackle
schools popping up in each and every less opportune areas in Nigeria, but do
not get deceived the so called ramshackle
schools are also not free, in earnest, A GREAT NUMBER OF Nigerian students
attend sub-standard schools and still have to pay for attending such schools.
According to several researches on the effect of stress on learning there is a
general consensus that stress at the time of learning will not yield any good
result and might lead to memory retrieval issues.
In 2016 an article published by Susanne Vogel & lars
Schwabe clearly support the fact that
stress is a negative factor in learning
even pointing out the repercussion
“ While stress around the time of learning is thought to
enhance memory formation, thus leading to robust memories, stress markedly
impairs memory retrieval, bearing, for instance, the risk of underachieving at
exams. ” A major way to reduce the stress level is the implementation
of online schooling and classrooms.
Many schools in Nigeria claim to
have online facilities but the truth is that most of their online facilities
are dysfunctional or lack proper management or even bug ridden poorly coded platforms
making the students online presence not a pleasant one.
Good news, while planning to write this blog I
did a search for online schooling or learning possibilities for Nigerian students,
I did find some online learning platform but
in my opinion I found this(https://9jaacademy.com/) one to be the very best of them all, my reasons are as
follows:
1)
It is (at least that
is what it says ) absolutely free to all students.
2)
Schools can register
in their entirety meaning that all classes, all subjects, all academic and
non-academic staffs access, all students of the school.
3)
Several interactive
rooms where students can interact with students from other schools thereby
exchanging knowledge and experience.
4)
Several exams and
test centres which registered schools can set exams for their students.
5)
Multiple school
branches possible
6)
Direct link to global
online library.
7)
Bookshops
8)
Access for parents or
guardians to be able to partake in the students schooling activities.
9)
Fully customisable
school platform that allows each school to design their school layouts and
colours to match their requirements.
10)Schools
will save the management cost of owing a web learning platform
11)School
blogs submission and publishing
Even the best of all is that at https://9jaacademy.com/
now schools can enrol for free and use
the service, it will be a good thing for Nigerian schools to start looking at ways
to reduce the daily stress faced by students by giving every student access to https://9jaacademy.com/ , the reality of the
day in Nigeria is hard even for children, this issue for Nigerian students have
gone beyond donations and organizations it is time for action.
“Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst
those in touch with it.”
―
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