This title is straight from the popular crime film of the early 70s. Starring the Jamaican reggae music star, Jimmy Cliff who plays Ivanhoe, a notorious criminal. You must remember it if you are old enough; it is suffused with reggae music and patois.
Ivanhoe ‘Ivan’ Martin (Jimmy Cliff) leaves the countryside to Kingston (Jamaica) in search of job. None is forthcoming and in the tough life of eking out a living, he is lured into a drug couriering and the resultant scrape with the law. In his recurrent altercation with the police, not even his emerging talent as a musician could safe him from eventual damnation.
This old story reminds Hardball of the travails of the Nigerian youth and the tough path he has to traverse to acquire education in Nigeria. To successfully get educated in Nigeria up to the tertiary level, one can almost write a book titled … yes, you guessed it, The Harder They Come. To get the most basic education in Nigeria today is almost as difficult as travelling to the moon.
In the 70s and 80s, average Nigerian youths who passed school certificate examination would easily get into over dozen federal universities available. The less-than-average students who could not make requisite grade one or two travelled to America or Canada for university education. Even they thrived upon getting to the U.S. This a testimony to the quality of intellect of the average Nigerian.
The story has change tremendously today. Getting education in Nigeria today is like striking water in the desert. In the first place, there are over 1.5 million prospective students seeking for admission while less than 500,000 openings are available in all the tertiary institution in the country. Successive federal governments, short on strategic thinking, never built schools to match her burgeoning and uncontrolled population.
What we have today, therefore, is akin to a mad scramble to gain admission into tertiary institutions. To keep otherwise brilliant students out of the universities, seems the purpose of the much frazzled authorities these days. Nigeria’s university admission system therefore does not strive to get the best into schools but to keep the horde.
A student is therefore subjected to about half a dozen examinations in other to qualify to study in the university or polytechnic. Let us count: there is the West African Examinations Council (WAEC); the National Examinations Council (NECO); Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB); there is the Post-UTME: there is also JUPEB and even Pre-Degree in some instances.
Some hapless fellows could pass through this rash of exams for three to five years without getting admission to desired universities or for desired courses. And make no mistake these are brilliant students.
It’s indeed a tortuous journey to education in Nigeria today.