Fmr. University don Julius Igboeche decries low standard of education.
4 min read
The Obinwanne Umuaka Autonomous Community born Chief Julius Chibuikem Igboeche is an all-round educationist. He has climbed the staircase of education as a man who has built many pupils and students to become what they are today. During his years of service, the Akajimmuta 1 of Umuaka started teaching from primary school and later went to secondary school where he also taught for years. After teaching in secondary school, he upgraded himself and obtained a Masters in Philosophy of Education and later became a lecturer in the university until he retired in 2013.
As if all the honourable impacts he had so far made were not enough to take him to the pinnacle of his career, he enrolled for a doctoral degree program at the University of Port Harcourt but alas and in the words of Phil Collins, “Something happened on the way to heaven.” The burden of simultaneously training his five children in the university weighed him down financially. He subsequently abandoned the program and focused on his career and the training of his children.
Today, Chief Igboeche has meritoriously retired from service, although not as a happy man. One may ask why. The answer is simple; the education sector he and his colleagues had laboured over the years to build is today relegated to the back seat as the standard keeps falling “like a park of cards after a slight push.” For over a period of 10 minutes, Chief Igboeche who was visibly shaken with a burning anger blamed the system and the society for the drastic drop in education. He disclosed to Umuaka Times that during their years as students of St. Saviour’s Secondary School Umuaka where he schooled with his fellow classmates like Damian Onwukwe, Solo Obioha, Tony Nwaiwu, Casmir Azubuike, Uzor Duruji under the class of 75, the competition then was to come out in flying colours and students were extremely serious with their studies. Hear him. “During our time, nobody was smoking or drinking. Our interest then was to read and pass with high grade. Today secondary school students smoke and drink openly and the standard of education is suffering it badly. The level has dropped. You may never see a graduate who can write or speak English English properly. When I was writing my thesis, I was going to National Library Owerri every week. Today it is no longer so. Students use money to pass.”
During the exclusive interview with Umuaka Times, Chief Igboeche also lamented that during their days, there was nothing like the sale of handouts to students by lecturers. To drive home his point, he also disclosed that the respect for teachers has drastically dropped. “Teachers of today take the advantage of students and pass them and that is very sad.”
Another issue of serious concern the foremost educationist listed as one of the major problems confronting and destroying the standard of education in Nigeria as presently constituted was the involvement of secondary school students in cybercrime otherwise known as “Yahoo-Yahoo”. “The students of today, starting from secondary schools are more involved in “Yahoo-Yahoo” than their studies.”
On how to tackle the falling standard of education in the society of today especially in Umuaka and Imo State, Chief Igboeche appealed to communities and other stakeholders to come up with legislations stopping children in primary and secondary schools from engaging in “Yahoo-Yahoo”. “The communities should make laws stopping children who are yet to reach the age of making money from having access to big phones. Vanguard groups should be set up to monitor such children and teachers should be members of the vanguard groups.”
In his own advocacy, such children if arrested should be made to face severe punishments in order to serve as a deterrent to others. He also advocated that their phones should be taken away from them.
The blame according to Chief Igboeche should not only go to the government and students alone; parents also have their own share of the blame. He cited the ugly behaviour of some parents who have misled their children and wrongly planted the love of money into their brain. “Such children think nothing more except money.”
On the role of faith based organizations, he displayed maximum faith that if churches take over all the schools, the standard of education will improve tremendously. He thanked churches that have so far built good and affordable schools.
On his own personal role to bring back the standard, Chief Igboeche told Umuaka Times that after his retirement, he picked a teaching job in a church owned school in Umuaka called Sancta Maria Secondary School where he teaches and grooms students with positive vibes. “In do not only teach them as their teacher, I also teach them morals as their father.”
