When it comes to institutions, I’ve had my fair share of either one and it’s not something that I’m ever shy about. There are things that I’ll always find reliable more than the other, and it goes to show based on the system and structure that is in place to handle everything that is there to be handled.
If I were interested in getting a 9-5, one of the job types I would go for would be a government job, especially federal government work. There is nothing that screams stability like government work. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re in the employ of the government, your job is secure and your promotion is sure. The only way you could lose said job is if you get involved in illegalities or forge documents.
Whereas, working for private companies can be a toss of a dice. One day, you can be fired simply for coming in late to work or looking at your boss the wrong way. But for government jobs, no one office has the authority to fire anyone. It would have to go through a lot of red tape and bureaucratic processes before it would go through. It’s for this same reason that getting a government job is also difficult.
But then, coming to institutions, I would also lean towards government-owned. I’ve said countless times here that I went to a government school here in Lagos, I had the opportunity to go to a catholic school for my senior secondary education but I purposely flunked the entrance exams because I wanted to finish up in the same school. That’s to tell you how much I enjoyed my school.
I don’t know about now, but government schools during my time were really underrated. Also, I was lucky enough that Former Governor Fashola’s war on cultism and school truancy started around the time that I got into JSS 1. My first year in secondary school was rife with cult clashes, riots, and disturbances. However, strict rules were implemented to combat this.
The only punishment that existed then was expulsion. If you sagged your school shorts, you got expelled. If you were out when you were not supposed to, you would be kicked out of the school. Even something as basic as sitting on your desk could get you kicked out. And all the principals were mandated to do this or they would be sanctioned. It didn’t stop there, they also introduced the rule of each student having at least six credits including maths and English, if not they would repeat the class. And if they failed the class again, they would be withdrawn from the school.
By the time I was in JSS2, the population of the school had been cut almost in half. I lost so many friends then because many people preferred to go to private schools than repeat a class. But thankfully, that was when I began to enjoy my school. No more fights and we had professional teachers who really took their jobs seriously.
By the time I was in senior secondary, we had access to laboratories where we did our biology, physics, and chemistry experiments. All of them are sponsored by the government. If at all we contributed anything, it was never more than N200. To date, I can still remember the tests we did, from tests for reflection and refraction to dissecting rabbits… we did it all.
Besides education, religion was also taken seriously. Teachers made sure that the Christian and Muslim fellowships were thriving. Till the day I left there, no week went by that there was no activity in either place.
Now, I’m not saying that there was nothing wrong with my school, it had its perks. However, if I had the opportunity to do it all again, I would still choose the same school. I don’t know how education is now, although my Mom is a teacher and I know that the Lagos State government is working hard to make schools smarter. Government school teachers no longer write lesson notes, everything they need is uploaded on smart devices provided by the government.
As far as I’m concerned, the government school I attended was dope. If I had gotten that kind of education from a private school, I would have paid hundreds of thousands in school fees. I just feel that government schools have a bad rep, considering all the bad things that used to happen in the past. By the time I was in the school, they were all but gone.
But then, is it just in school? There are other areas as well where the government is really trying. Private hospitals around here usually have quack doctors, and you can never really know who is for real. However, a government hospital has more structures in place. The only issue is that you would wait. And wait. As long as your case is not an emergency, you would have to wait. And then, another issue is the strike actions, if these didn’t exist, government hospitals would have always been the go-to for me.
There is just no better sector, each has what they’re good for. After all, our epileptic power supply remained epileptic even after the Distros and Generating Stations were sold to private companies. It was during my short stint at the Transmission Company of Nigeria that I realized that our power problem is not in the generation or transmission but in the distribution. Power is generated 24/7 in Nigeria, and it’s always transmitted, no matter what.
But the distribution network is to blame. They have old transformers that can’t carry much load, or transformers carrying too much load. Hence the need to always ration light to avoid the rickety transformers from blowing. In truth, if the light stayed on for too long, many transformers would give up the ghost.
So, in the end, what matters the most is that the system is working. Whether private or public, we need to consider all sides before making a choice. If you noticed, most of my experiences here are in Lagos, I don’t know the system in other places, so everything I said is based on my experiences in Lagos. But then, there might be those who think otherwise. I’d love to hear what they think.
