By Aare Afe Babalola

LAST week, I wrote on the misconception of the true role of education, which in large measure has resulted in the decline in the quality of education in Nigeria. I stated, among others, that education should be programmed to produce a complete man who would embrace the values of self-reliance, honesty, diligence, entrepreneurship, self-esteem, and the ability to face the realities of life. This week, I will deal with how parents have contributed to the rapid decline in education in Nigeria.

Often times, we all blame the students, particularly at secondary and tertiary levels, for not being sufficiently serious about their studies, forgetting that more often than not, the parents themselves are tangentially culpable and responsible for the irresponsibility of their children.

In order to properly build up a child and make a total man/woman out of him/her, there is a need for cooperation between the home and the school. In recognition of this, institutions all over the world established parents and teachers associations for the overall development of students.

When children are under the control of teachers, particularly in boarding schools, the teachers are expected to take over the children’s welfare, security, safety, health, and indeed their general wellbeing in addition to their education, thus making the duty of the teachers far greater than that of the parents.

But when the children go back home, what do we find? Either their parents don’t have time to supervise them or they are too busy with the pursuit of their businesses at the expense of the welfare of the children. Some are even too busy to look at their children’s report cards. But, lest I am misunderstood, I have nothing against hard-working professionals (I am one myself), but a delicate and deliberate balance must be struck between people’s careers and a good home.

Here, I want to rely on some personal experience. Sometime ago, at about 12:30 in the afternoon, I caught a student who was trying to escape through a bush path to the town. He confessed that he was going out to drink beer. Aghast, I told the young man the lack of wisdom inherent in his self-imposed pastime, with a subtle threat that I would report him to his father.

His mien and attitude were: “What’s the big deal about drinking beer?” As if that were not enough, he dropped the bombshell by saying that it would not matter if he was reported to his father because they both shared drinks at the family bar back home.

On another occasion, a student was caught in the hospital drinking alcohol, and indeed, he was drunk. Again, when he was told that he would be reported to his father, he merely smiled and retorted that it was needless and futile to report him to his father because, according to him, his father would have been drunk by that time of the day.

Lo and behold, when I called his father, he was not only stark drunk, but was also babbling some incoherent words that he would speak with me later, to which the young student retorted: “But I warned you not to call him, that he would have been drunk at that time of the day.” Pray, how do you manage such students who have been negatively ‘formed’ at home?

Another way parents have contributed to the decline in education is in their failure to cooperate with school authorities in ensuring full compliance with college rules and regulations. In most public universities today, students stroll in three/four weeks after resumption without their parents chasing them back to school. This brings me to the case of a female student at our university who arrived three weeks after classes resumed, only to be met by her mother, who “pleaded” that they were both on vacation in Dubai. This was at a time when her colleagues had put in three weeks of serious academic work and had written at least two tests.

When I was the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council in UNILAG for seven years, I noticed that some highly placed and influential parents gave directives to the Vice-Chancellor to give their children admission even when such children did not qualify. Before I assumed office, about 1,000 of such unqualified students had been admitted. I found that they were the ones causing trouble at the approach of examinations at the end of each semester because they were never prepared to write examinations. The vice chancellor did not want to offend these powerful big bosses; hence I personally wrote to reject their demand.

Again, there was this woman whose daughter was coming last in her secondary school class, but her mother told me barefacedly that her child would be admitted regardless of her academic performance/status. Lo and behold, when the JAMB result that year came out, her daughter scored over 290, one of the best results that year. The child was later sent out of the university at the end of the first session as she could not cope.