Cries of the Oppressed

Our universities today train students to become slaves, yes men, and not capable of fitting into today’s society. Imagine a scenario where a university lecturer threatens a student with carry over and failure just because the student his fighting for his right. This is unbecoming and unacceptable. A lecturer telling someone “I’ll report you are sick for the whole session.” ??? for a student who has been very hardworking and tired. Such lecturers are die hard sadists and should not be allowed in our campuses. A situation where one is made to rethink if one isn’t really in an advanced secondary school. What are they training us to be? To graduate from school and not make any impact on our immediate nation? To graduate and lack leadership and management skills? This must be curtailed. There is a vivid difference between disobeying and expressing one’s opinion. We complain that young minds are misused, that students engage in violent unionism, cultism, showdowns and examination malpractice. Yet we do not provide for the young one a platform to voice his pains: his gains: his innermost feelings, not only that, we treat him like garbage, shouting on him at every available opportunity. We consider him not to own a mind of his own. We treat him as if we are gods and goddesses. We fail to remember that the young ones of today are the leaders of tomorrow, if that mind is not properly nurtured; we shall face the consequences later in life. Students are not clamoring for undue freedom, all we want is truth and justice. There is a common saying that ‘create interest in whatsoever you are doing, if not do something else’. Lecturers make students loose interest in the course of there choice. They fail to welcome ideas, sticking to the old ways, they place priorities on attendances rather than on understanding of the subjects. A place, culture, person or institution that remains static, do not progress, rather it depletes and is wiped off totally. Students are not allowed to make researches on their own, they are not given the chance to build on lecturers’ notes and handouts, they are literally forced to swallow and pour down during examinations. Yet our country complain of lack of development; whereas education, which is the bedrock of the nation, is not allowed to grow. Governments should no more be blamed, as lecturers are not laying down examples of the change they want. We do not want this to continue, we do not want to be staunch followers of archaic ideas, the old has gone to the beyond, we need a change of attitude; lecturers should be more flexible with students. The art of diplomacy and proper understanding of students’ minds should be embraced and promoted on our Nigerian campuses. The future starts today and the time for change is NOW….