Is School really a scam? By Sarah Cypriano
POLITICS DIGEST- The above saying has been gaining a wide audience overtime. We now have a situation whereby fresh graduates, on their sign out day print ‘las las school na scam’ on their shirt.
Now, the question is, is school really a scam?
Scam is defined by the English dictionary as ‘a fraudulent deal’ and the set of students who make the statement simply insinuate that they have benefited nothing from schooling, rather, it is a waste of time and a means of extortion.
Taking a deep look at the essence of schooling itself, it serves as a means of socialization, as it is one of the agents of socialization.
A child from age one to about 18-20 years old learns to be among his peers, interact, share ideas and learn. The school is designed in a way that you mix with different students of your equal from diverse culture, religion, ethnicity, belief and so on. You begin to learn about these concepts and how they contribute to the society. Because you are among classmates from various parts of the world, you begin to learn tolerance, respect, peace, assertiveness amongst other things and virtues.
Every school has a curriculum that is designed for learners’ perceived needs, so, the instructors and teachers mould a child around the elements of a curriculum. As a student progresses in each curriculum, they get to learn higher standards of each lesson. The curricular equip them with the skills they need to thrive as a member of the society, they learn the acceptable and unacceptable conduct of their community.
The same curriculum serves as a building block and foundation for some students’ career path. For instance, a child is introduced to science and such child begins to build interest on how the human body works (anatomy, medicine and surgery, pharmacy, orthopedics, paediatrics etc), or introduced to technology and the child develops interest in web development, computer engineering, virtual assistantship, online marketing etc.
While some other students discover their leadership skills among their peers and they start to work towards becoming a leader in the society and in their field, some others discover their latent skills right from school. There are great musicians in today’s world whose passion for music began manifesting from their primary, secondary, or higher school, especially if they attended a school that had enough resources to support their hobby. A good example is ‘Asa’.
Also, voluntary work is a service that is much appreciated in our society and many volunteers learned how to offer free service for the betterment of a community from their school.
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They establish clubs to train the members of a school, go out for outreaches and so on till they become a professional volunteers and all of these start from school. A lady once narrated how voluntary work helped her to build a career and provided her with the necessary skills and expertise.
However, not all students discover themselves in school or have much interest in what the school provides.These group of students come out of school, feeling empty and making the conclusion that the school has just made a remarkable years of their life a waste. They mostly have to start their life again, finding what really interests them and keying into it. Additionally, There are student who have low IQ and struggle all through the years of their schooling, and so, they do not find any joy or satisfaction from whatever the school has to offer them. Students in this category are majorly good at learning a vocation.Their own predicament is not that they don’t want to learn, but the book won’t just stick, which is more of a result of their parents or one of their parents having low IQ as well. Meanwhile, many schools are now inculcating vocational studies in their curricular to make a provision for these set of students.
Lastly, there are category of students who are being forced to school, thus, they attend lessons because of the reason that they have to. They do so to satisfy their parents and meet the criteria of being catered for. The products of this reason also call the school a scam.
On the flip side, if the school is seen from the angle of the purpose in which it is created, we wouldn’t have some products of the school seeing it otherwise.
A school is majorly to provide the major skills and knowledge needed in life and also lay a foundation for different fields.It doesn’t make provision for all types of profession. It is left to an individual to get the part of knowledge the school provides and further move to a special instruction centre to get the full package of whatever they want or knowledge they need to acquire. For instance, a student who envisions to be a pilot will not stop at a university, but would go further to aviation school to get equiped with the right training required.
Put differently, aside the knowledge gained in school, school education provides a learner with some connections that could be needed in the future. This connection is not just limited to the teachers or lecturers alone, it is encompassing and could be coursemates or anybody they encountered during the course of their schooling. Then, there is a saying that goes ‘no knowledge gained is wasted’
Having enunciated the above points, it is pertinent to ask, is school a scam?’
Sarah wrote this from Lagos