Science and Art Class Paints a Fault in Nigeria’s Education System

The Nigerian system of education implies that every student graduating from junior secondary school into senior secondary school choose one out of the three available departments (Science, Art and Commerce) that’s best suitable for her as these are the foundation of study if she decides to further through university to study a streamlined branch of the earlier chosen department.

Picking one out of these three departments should be easy. I mean, you simply had to assess yourself based on subjects you smashed in your Junior West African Examinations Council(WAEC) exams or chose based on your interest or passion. The later was the criteria i went with.

I was not the brightest of students while in junior school and you would find me, for example, at the 28th or 29th position out of 30 classmates at the end of each term. How I managed to pass junior WAEC exams feels like the 8th wonder of the world to me, I still don’t know how i did it.

Because I performed very low everyone including my mum, my aunt and my teachers concluded I would fit into art department because they feel it’s for the least smart students and science is for the smarter folks. To think people in science are intellectually superior to others in art or commercial is wayward thinking.

There is this narrative that students solving maths and physics equations that has no real-life application or conducting non-existent experiments like the simple pendulum experiment or the ‘generating electricity from banana’ experiment- have more societal value or because they spent six years of their lives memorizing(cramming) the first twenty elements – have a higher chance of making it in Life compared to those in sister departments.

To further illustrate this belittlement, in a class where art and commerce students have a higher share of the population, they still have to excuse science students from the main classroom to go have their classes in a less/spare/sub classroom depending on how the school’s built.

Literature, Government, Fine&Creative Art, Accounting/Commerce, Civic Education and Yoruba(Igbo, Hausa) have higher relevance and are highly applicable in real-life situations yet you see schools side-lining further-math students represent them in an external essay-writing competition. Sometimes the further-math student might be good at writing but I experienced first-hand art students been dropped.

You see well-furnished physics, biology and chemistry laboratories but the art studio is begging to be restocked with paintbrushes or the Music room as empty as a womanizer’s promises to ladies.

This similar behaviour I saw exhibited earlier when I experienced point-blank, obvious discrimination of students who are least academically sound eleven years ago in J.S.S 1 where the school admitted everyone who passed in flying colours into J.S.S.1a and I and others who were a little above average into J.S.S.1d. What happened to “Iron sharpens iron“?

There’s simply an unfair judgement of the intellectual capability of art and commerce students compared to science students, that’s why without assessments we assume a science student is the best fit for the position of head boy/ head girl.

The Side Effects

Now, because of these privileges and the narrative that science students have more societal value and because it’s sweet to refer to someone as ‘Engr This’ and ‘Dr That’, everyone wants to be a science student or wants their kid a science student. And because science is presumed to be for book-smart students, other students like me who are interested in science but not book-smart are forced into departments of no interest.

A friend, Fred* – a science student- is always at the 30th position out of 30 students after every term’s final exams. Fred knows poem, draws real good, funny as a comedian on drugs, a good actor, a very good dancer and singer who literally thought the entire school how to moon-walk like late Michael Jackson, a rabble-rouser who had a deep interest in performing and creative art and a very good footballer. During extra-curricular activities, every Friday at 1 PM, Fred* goes to press and drama club. He outright had no interest in science.

Our class-mates obviously saw Fred was a waste in science class, he was aware too but couldn’t do anything because he’s father said “it’s medicine or nothing” and would end paying his school fees if he switched departments.

He was broken on the inside because teachers failed to recognise he wasn’t cut out for science and would always write him off as an unserious student to an extent they forcefully made him repeat S.S.2, still as a science student.

There’re lots of kids out there who are smart and had an interest in anything else other than science but were unconsciously groomed by the society that science is where you should be if you are good at math.

What I Think?

We failed to recognize that people are gifted equally different. That is, everyone has something they’re good at and they start to realize it at different times/stages of their lives, some might require them to face a certain challenge before they discover their true selves.

For starter, having just Art, Science and Commerce to choose from are limiting on its own but it’s what we have. Further, the way we judge who should not and who should be in these departments is unsatisfactory and doesn’t do justice to what the student actually wants.

Students who are book-smart but don’t like science don’t want to be seen as less important so they end up choosing science. The efforts emphasized on science should be channelled to art and commerce so if a straight-A student in junior school choose a class other than science when in senior school (s)he would not be seen as a waste of brainpower.

Big respect to Mary Omole who was the over-all best student in Junior School and was tortured by teachers to joined science class but didn’t give in but followed her heart of becoming a charted accountant. Her resilient spirit has been finally appreciated.

Many may feel art and commerce have lesser monetary value and scare jobs opportunities but Nigeria is a diverse country with different cultures and traditions, art – like it is already been done in the entertainment sector but largely driven by private endeavours – would thrive if it’s given the same attention given to science.

I go to a science-specified University, the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. They’re non for art or commerce. Why can’t there be a Federal University of Art, Owerri? or a Federal University of Commerce, Owerri? Could it be it’s just not considered important knowing fully well art is rooted in Nigeria’s culture?