By Aisha Maureen
Graduation is defined by the online Wikipedia as the action of
receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is SOMETIMES
associated with, where students become graduates. In MOST countries, a
graduation usually only occurs at UNIVERSITY LEVEL.
In Nigeria, what used to be tagged Speech and Prize giving day,
memories of which bring nostalgic feelings to anyone who experienced it, has
now been tagged Graduation Day and instead of emphasizing on celebrating
academic excellence and giving opportunity for children skilled in one creative
art or the other to display their skill, it has been turned into a money
spinning venture where school authorities device various means to expose
parents/ guardians of their pupils to embarrassments and rip them off as much
money as they can.
It beats my imagination and saddens my heart that, today nobody talks
about Speech and Prize giving day. It used to be an honorable day. A day
parents and pupils look forward to with excitement. Corporate bodies are made to
attend and scholarships awarded pupils who distinguish themselves academically.
But, today, this day has been commercialized and baptized Graduation Ceremony.
I don’t understand what we are celebrating about that graduation. It has been
bastardized; turned into a huge fraud which is most painful. I found out that
some parents collaborate with the school authorities to perpetrate this fraud.
The most annoying part of it is that these institutions are managed by the
churches. The churches entrusted a precious thing like the education of our
children have turned into another thing entirely. If you look at what goes on
during our graduation ceremonies, you now begin to imagine what happens in our
various churches.
Some of the school authorities have taken the spiritual tabernacle to
this graduation event. Parents are asked to pay to light up a candle and pray
for their wards in the school. So, if you don’t have money and venture to be
there, your child will feel slighted and unloved. Imagine the psychological damage
this could cause the child! And some parents who decide to avoid the shame by
not coming dishonor their children. For instance, my child took the second
position. The child that took the first position, I wept for. That child won a
lot of awards but his impoverished parents were not present to congratulate
him. Even the costumes the child wore were all borrowed. My heart was broken
because he is my child’s best friend. I didn’t know who to blame.
Should I blame the parents of the child who carefully decided to
avoid the event for fear of being embarrassed by the money hungry school
authorities in religious garb? Or should I blame the school authorities that
have turned the event into a drama of extorting money from parents and
guardians of the pupils. This is so bad! It should be condemned!!
Another aspect to it is that when these children start an academic
session, the first few weeks the school uses for academic programs while the
remaining weeks are used for rehearsals of different creative displays. Yet,
when the D day comes, the children will not be allowed to display what they had
been rehearsing. The MC will keep knocking out those programs the pupils had
been rehearsing to accommodate the greedy school authorities and selfish
parents who want to use that day for fashion parade or august meeting or
launching of sorts.
Who is graduating? Is it the parents that are graduating or the
institution or is it the children that are being celebrated? I am begging these
charlatans who call themselves educationists to please take away this
corruption from these children’s environment; children, who are still between
the ages of 4 and 12, and are being subconsciously conditioned to accept that
talent, creativity should be sacrificed on the altars of money-mongering. I am
calling on all the bishops; both catholic and Anglican to, please, with
immediate effect, tender an unreserved apology to the parents – those who have
been victims, suffering in silence. These religious leaders should investigate
into this matter and make sure the perpetrators are brought to book. I’m
calling on the Honourable Commissioner for Education to look into this matter.
She is a mother and should understand the peril our school system is exposing
our kids to.
Look at the way people in the north are being turned into terrorists.
You give a child bomb and she goes to a target area and detonates it and lives
and properties are destroyed. It is the same destruction that we are practicing
here by exposing our children to misplaced priorities. If you don’t imbibe in
this child the right values and ethics that promote constructive living, once
the child loses it, she has lost it. That child is being turned into a ticking
time bomb that will in due time destroy you.