By Guest Writer
The Role of a Counsellor in the Nigerian education system is really primitive as students in science department in high school are still titrating acid and base to give them salt. A mixture they have no in-depth knowledge of beyond writing the correct reaction formula. Their counterpart in China are already coupling technical electronics from scratch.
Back after my National Diploma in pure physics having made good grade because I really studied and knew this things, I was eager to bring or involve in conversations about sciences with people.
I met my waterloo with an electrician who only had O level as his formal education, and went fully into skilled electrical and electronics knowledge.
He was coupling the board of the system of a television the type used in 2000. The CRT (cathode ray tube) model. The Bucky boxy design used back then referred to as box TV. I bragged to him that I can draw the buildup of the board and name the parts of the top of my head. I wasn’t lying though but I think the devil took a break from his coven to embarrass me that day because the guy looked me deadeye and suggested that I should just identify a component on the board called capacitor.
Unfortunately for me we had lettered and unlettered audience and both sides were routing for their champion. I offered to draw the buildup of the capacitance of the capacitor but the audience echoed NO. I lost the battle apparently I did not know a capacitor physically even though it was the most conspicuous component on the board.
The above scenario is one of the several instances of the need for functional education in Nigeria. Learning should not only be confined to the classroom.
Students’ academic strength and weakness should be identified and placement should only be made accordingly. No godfatherism, no backdoor, nothing. This is where a counsellor comes in, a counsellor being a trained person satisfied with knowledge in this area among others should be introduced in schools from basic classes and references should be sent to forwarding schools.
A Counsellor will measure and access, identify learning deficiencies, personality and individual
differences. Every child is not the same. A counselor would tell the pace and best pattern for each child learning. A friend in diaspora told me classroom activities in Nigeria is 20 years behind the western world. We are still solving dy/dx equations that are not practical in real world.
We need wider syllabus that includes skill acquisition. Children are differently gifted but we box this talent through strict parenting and societal expectation. Childhood unrest that should be identified and possible career path drawn from is seen as unserious and beaten out of the child.
A voluble child that would make a good orator or public speaker will be forced to be quiet and taken to science department instead of Arts department where their creativity will be developed from teen.
Counselors should be allowed to do their job. They are duly trained for this. There are several learning deficiencies like dyslexia, dysgraphia, amongst others. Every child would not learn at a fast pace. Every child would not be calm; not all kids would have high IQ. Study reveal that ADHD is predominant in children.
Counselors identify domestic issues and their effects on the child. They would also identify if a child would perform better as a team or individually. All these are gotten from questionnaires, observations, and standardized tests, among others.
They will give the best career advice that will be beneficial to the child and Nation at large which will encourage functional education and growth in the Nigerian Economy.
Bilikis Morenike Balogun writes from Lagos, Nigeria
