The Impact Of Miracle Centres On Our Educational Sector By Hassan Bala

Education is the cornerstone and bed rock of any meaningful
development. It is a key to success and the only bridge across
ignorance and illiteracy. It is a means to an end that can take one
to the top of the mountain. It is for this reason people can do all
it takes and how much it costs to seek for it. The sacrifice for
seeking knowledge includes among other things; living in hunger,
engaging in hard labour, spending huge amount of money, having
sleepless nights and restless days.

However, the story is different today, in that seeking for
knowledge is seen as time wasting and time consuming. This is
because; today’s students have simple ways of passing examinations
since education is measured by one’s paper qualifications
(certificates). Thus, education is now regarded as a simple
commodity that can be bought and sold. Students no longer value
their teachers let alone value what they give. In fact, our present
educational setting is ‘students first’ and then, ‘their teachers’.
Thus, a teacher can simply be fired at the expense of a
student.

Consequently, teachers no longer have value or even relevance in
the society. The parents that are supposed to protect the image of
teachers in the eyes of students have now device a means of
painting different pictures to them. And the result is good
teachers are now seen as conservatives and the bad ones as nothing
but massagers. Our schools have turned out to be market places
where we buy and sell results on the basis of competition. All
these negative vices are the results of one canker called
‘Miracle Centres’ where certificates are awarded like
birthday gifts. Prospects of these centres are now
determined by the numbers of success they record in students SSCEs.
The number of As and Bs students get speak volume of the attraction
they gain from parents. Thus, student can now pass their SSCE at
credit levels without sighting the exams centre even for once, let
alone sitting for any exams.

The impact of the above is production of empty graduates that
add nothing but nuisance to the society. This because, statistics
show that more and more Nigerians are graduating from higher
institutions of learning, but majority of them have become like a
completed project that adds little or no value to the labour force,
since companies now see them as unemployable. They don’t have
required knowledge not to talk of requisite skills in that they
came through dubious means and passed through substandard
examinations. It is for this the writer believes that more than 60
percent of students in our various institution can be withdraw for
poor academic performance if they are to be evaluated on normal
academic standard. The reason for this is not farfetched; a lot of
our graduate cannot read and write much to talk of speaking fluent
English.

It is however worth noting that everyone seems to have a hand in
the emergence of this cancer that is fast killing the standard of
education. First, we must examine the role that homes play. How
well are the parents discharging their responsibilities, in terms
of ethical upbringing of their children so that they can shun what
is evil? Before a child thinks of cutting corners, the child must
have the support of the family. Alas! The parents not only
supporting their children to engage in malpractice but also bargain
on their behalves. Hence, parents go as far as buying leaked papers
for their children because they want to present them as brilliant
in the eyes of the society. Sometimes, parents only present
certificates to their children while sitting comfortably at home
without letting them know where and how they get the
certificates.

Second, the larger society also shares from the same situation
as the values that we promote in our society today is not such that
promote hard work but laziness and cutting corners. That is why
everyone seems to be corrupt and the worse part of it is that it is
seen as a normal way of life. Third, the teachers too are not left
behind; they are now used as machineries that sell their labour and
productivity to those who that can afford it. The result of the
above is the increase of private schools at the expense of public
ones that used to be the best of all times. Public schools are now
a shadow of themselves when compared to what they were like in the
late 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s. Finally, the government too
should be blamed on these vices; they promote corruption, cutting
corners and unethical values themselves. They are also not in a
position to assert themselves as the moderating force for the
development of positive values and ethics in the society. In fact
they provide an atmosphere where all these negatives can be
perpetrated. For instance, In Nigeria’s budget, the government has
continued to appropriate funds less than one third of the 26%
recommended by UNESCO to education and they have continued to
express disguised optimism that the education system will
improve.

As long as we continue like that, people will continually get
wealthy and we can never ask for the source of their wealth; people
will always get certificates and we don’t have the zeal to ask for
how they arrived at such certificates. In the end, things will get
worse. We therefore need to go back and address our general values,
materialism, certification and other things that are attached to
educational sector. And in doing that standard should be our watch
wall. Unless and until we do that, our today will bad, our tomorrow
will be worse and the future of our children will be the worst
ever. God Forbid!

 Hassan
Bala, Lecturer,
Department of Private Law,
Faculty of Law, ABU, Zaria

Maina’s ill-health stalls trial in N2B Fraud. ..court
orders full medical examination

The trial of the chairman of the defunct Pension Reforms Task
Force PRTF Abdulrasheed Maina in an alleged N2b fraud was yesterday
stalled at the federal high court in Abuja ollowing his sudden
ill-health and confinement to bed rest by medical expert.

Maina is being prosecuted by the federal government on a12-count
charge bothering on alleged N2B pension fund fraud, money
laundering, operating fictitious bank accounts and other fraudulent
activities.

At the resumed trial, an officer of the Nigeria Prison Service
stormed the court and sought audience with the court with a letter
of medical report issued by a doctor with the prison Mr Idowu
Ajayi.

The letter however sparked off long controversies when Justice
Okon Abang upon acknowledging it read it and faulted it’s mode.

Abang agreed that human being can fall sick but got angry that
the medical doctor who authored ithe letter failed to give specific
period the accused person will be confined to bed rest.

Apparently furious, the Judge wondered why a medical expert will
write such a letter without indicating the specific time Maina will
be on bed rest adding that the action of the doctor is a ploy to
stop the court from the trial of the accused person.

He accused the doctor of not helping the court in the shoddy
manner the letter was written and its tone that suggested that
Maina will not be able to stand trial for undidclosed period.

In a reaction, counsel to the Economic and Financial Cries
Commission EFCC Mohammed Abubakar prayed for an order of court
compelling the Deputy Comptroller General of the Nigeria Prison
Service, being a medical doctor, to carry out comprehensive
examination on the health status of Maina.

The counsel also prayed the court for an order that the prison
chief must make his report available to the court on the adjourned
date to actually ascertain the health issues.

Maina’s counsel Francis Oronsaye however pleaded with the court
to adjourn the trial for one week to enable his client recover
fully

In his ruling, Abang said that the request for one week
adjournment did not go down well with the court and held that a
medical report cannot act as an order to stay trial in a criminal
matter.

He noted that the doctor who claimed to have examined the
defendant did not include a time the defendant was supposed to have
recovered.

Justice Abang consequently ordered the Deputy Comptroller of the
Nigeria Prison in charge of medicals and welfare to examine tMaina
and report back to the court on November 7, slated for continuation
of trial.

By PRNigeria^[1]