By Femi Fasetiire
Nigeria’s minister of education, Dr Olatunji Alausa may have another dilemma to tackle in his efforts to revolutionise the country’s academic sector, as students of a school in Lagos have raised questions about the better option between boarding schools and attending daily from home.
This was the topic of a heated debate competition organised by the school’s administrators, and it took place less than 24 hours after Dr Alausa came out with a proposal to fuse primary and secondary schools into a single 12-year programme, which would jettison the current 6-3-3-4 format that Nigeria has operated for several years.
While Yusuf’s supporters would point out that his suggestion could take Nigeria close to the American style of separating high school from college, many critics counter with a reminder that there is a need for continuity in the nation’s academic structure.
Similar criticism trailed an equally ambitious and novel move by Alausa’s predecessor, Barrister Tahir Mamman to limit the age of eligibility for Secondary School Certificate Examination (popularly known as WAEC) to 18 years, while also stopping anyone below that benchmark from seeking admission into any Nigerian university.
Along the line, at a point when everyone thought controversial issues had ended in the Nigerian education terrain, Alausa appeared to have stirred the hornet’s nest anew with his proposed policy of a 12-year-format for basic education in the country.
However, as heated discussions rage over the new proposal, Yusuf and other education egg heads may have to start looking into the possibility of institutionalising a benchmark of boarding facilities for all secondary schools in the country.
This is sequel to victory that was recorded on Friday by four junior class three students of Distinction Gate College, Ikotun, Lagos, as their argument in support of a motion that boarding institutions are better than day ones was adjudged to have beaten that of senior secondary one, who opted in favour of attending school daily from home.
Although their school is actually a daily academic institution, without any immediate plans for boarding facilities, the JS3 quartet of Ettu Nuriya Ayoola, Adebayo Demilade, Adebayo Eniola and Adeyeye Tofunmi argued convincingly in favour of residential school as a better option to attending the place of learning daily from home.
Their lead speaker, Ettu Nuriya stated in part: “Most renowned people and many achievers the world over, like Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg all attended boarding school, which gave them the foundation to achieve greatness.
“Attending boarding school will make you self-reliant, self-confident and able to come up with personally generated ideas that will make you determined to succeed in life. It gives you the experience to survive on your own, rather than be spoon fed by mummy and daddy at home.”
Incidentally, the biggest and most popular secondary schools in Nigeria have boarding facilities, which many educationists say is the major yardstick that they use in judging high standard, top quality and elitist value in academic institutions.
