It's another weekend. The sky hasn't changed its colors except for our weather conditions in Nigeria, West Africa. The sudden harmattan that appeared about two weeks ago has got everyone talking. Usually, the harmattan season begins in December through January. We had expected that the weather conditions would behave as usual but we were taken aback when nothing of such came up in January. Now, the rhetoric has changed. The Meteorological Society has announced that the delay is caused by the leakage of the ozone layer and pollution.
My weekend is always fixed with one event or the other. This very weekend is different and it's getting weird already because I hate to toy with my time.
Sometime in 2023, I took up a lecturing job with the Polytechnic, Ibadan. I needed the job to sharpen my knowledge in my field of study. Over the years, I have been in the office, taking up administrative duty which has kept me at bay from studying history and education which is my area of specialization. So, when this job came on, I was glad that it would make me go back and dust my library again.
Soon, the lectures began. But unfortunately, the students are nowhere to be found. It is quite unusual for lecturers to be in class waiting for students during our days. I wonder what it is that is taking the attention of our students. After the first week of appearing in class for lectures, only a few students were available. It was so annoying. I was rushing to meet up with the class but the learners that I was aiming to impact weren't around.
After a month of meeting with the students, we had a staff meeting where I poured my heart into the management board of the school. Other lecturers made the same observation and we agreed to wait for the learners during their semester examination.
However, I didn't allow the attitude of the students to affect my preparedness for each lecture session. Every Saturday, I would rush to meet up with the few students who were ready and available to have lectures. The few learners and I got very familiar since we always engaged in an interactive class. I bet you, the classes were always very interesting and the learners long to have it when it's the weekend.
The sandwich program for ordinary national diplomas was set up for adult learners who are employed and busy with one or two things during the week. Most of the learners needed a higher certificate to either upgrade their status in their workplaces or to get a better job. Despite all that, it appears to me that what the learners need is just the certificate and not the rigor involved in getting accredited.
The first-semester examination started today and the whole school is jam-packed. Some strange faces that I have not come across before in the lecture hall were seen today.
Some of my students, I mean those who attended classes greeted me as we exchanged pleasantries. As part of the examination invigilation team, I went to the exams and records office to carry materials for the examination. All the learners sat in the hall waiting to get materials but I ordered them out of the exam hall to address them before the examination commenced.
They were to drop all gadgets outside the examination hall and only come in with their writing materials. With this, I made them sit according to their matriculation number. I learned that before today, the learners were allowed to engage freely in examination malpractice but I disallowed it. My view is that only students who have prepared for the examination pass it.
Over the years, I have witnessed a lot of students with high-profile certificates who cannot defend them. One would wonder how they came about the certificate. The truth is that many a time, students who carry certificates that they cannot defend attend such a sandwich program where a lot of mess is allowed.
Another way I get annoyed by examination malpractice is that most university bachelor's certificates of Nigerian origin are not accepted for work or post graduate studies in Europe, making it seem like we are all involved in certificate scandals that we do not merit. However, it is not so. Many of us went to the four walls of a school to study and also allowed the school to pass through us.
This thing get me infuriated.
This is my response to 
•All images used in this publication are mine.
