By Arikewuyo Abdulrafiu
As a keynote speaker at School of Oriental & African Studies, University London in 2017, the erstwhile Emir of Kano, Mallam Sanusi Lamido once observed that our situation has gotten to a level where English is now used to measure intelligence and education. And worst still, the farther your accent is from Nigeria accent, the more educated you seem to be in the judgment of the general populace. This is truly our situation without mincing words. However, another major disaster is looming unless we check it now and nip it in the bud.
One way or the other, we have accepted English as our primary language, and it is gradually replacing our mother tongue. I may be too young to know how we got to this level but at least I now know the effect. Let me expose myself to further reiterate my point. Sometime ago, I was filling an application online and a question of whether English is my first language was asked. I was confused as to whether to say no or yes until I asked an experienced colleague who educated me that I can’t make that claim because I am not a native speaker. You may think that I was stupid to have nursed that thought in the first place; but the point is, this is the level of confusion we have plunged ourselves into as a nation. And now, we are not and can never be accepted as native speakers and we neither do we have value for our own language.
If you take a poll, you will realize that most people believe that speaking English is the only parameter that can be used to measure the level of education and intelligence, which is not so. But this is a small disaster compared to a new destination that we are gradually and unconsciously dragging ourselves to.
This time, it is about the curriculum. Most big schools now pride themselves on offering either British or American curriculum in addition to our local curriculum and gradually people are beginning to have the feeling that our curriculum is inferior and that of America or the UK is better and global. This is another disease that will infect the elites of this country and get transmitted to the rest of the population.
We must know that nations develop a curriculum to suit their local needs and national vision. Implementing the curriculum of another country in our clime is not quality education; it is a misplacement of priority that is capable of destroying our social and even economic fabrics. The curriculum is unique to the country’s education system just like the national flag is unique to nations.
I remember when I was doing my IJMB in College of Education Ilorin. The school did not provide our chemistry textbook on time and when we complained to our teacher, he said most of the books they find are foreign and the examples given are not Nigeria based, so they are searching for a Nigerian textbook that will serve the same purpose. For instance, while talking about power generation, you have examples such as Grand Coulee power station in Washington or W.A. parish power station in Texas instead of Sapele power station in Sapele or Kainji power station in Niger State. This is the kind of shenanigan that we get to when we refuse to respect and value our curriculum.
Some of us may think that teaching students these kinds of stuff is civilization, but if we maintain this mentality, it will only be a matter of time before we weep as a nation after we have completely eroded our identity and we are not suitable for any location on the global map. Take time to read and see what is happening to the black Americans; then this will sink.
While I am not saying that everything is good with our curriculum, we must realize that importing curriculum from other nations will only add more salt to our injury. Importantly, I need to clarify that it is a good thing to expose children to other cultures and traditions, so they have a global perspective of how things work, but not completely immerse them into those cultures while neglecting ours.
International schools are primarily established for experts working in that country, members of the diplomatic corps, and people with such characteristics who would want to educate their children using their home country’s curriculum in their country of residence. For instance, an Indian working in Nigeria would like to enrol his children in an Indian school in Nigeria.
Also, cases where this could be applicable is when the students will be taking their university education abroad, that way, teaching them with foreign curriculum may not be a bad idea. However, to generally and gradually relegate our own curriculum to the advantage of the curriculum of other nations in our own country is not only a national disgrace by a cankerworm, the effect of whom will not be palatable for this nation in the future.
My appeal is for all education stakeholders to come together to rescue our education sector from this impending national ill and sensitize parents on the need to respect our curriculum. Because, in most cases, it is parents that make such demands without proper guidance. Finally, agencies of government that are saddled with the responsibility of supervision and quality control must rise to their responsibility to ensure that our curriculum does not go the same way our language has gone.
Abdulrafiu, a Physics and Mathematics teacher at Al-Buraimi Private School, writes from Oman.