Applauding the Kaduna State Government’s Stand against Nonsense -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

I was happy and I cannot suppress the glee in me when I read a recent circular, dated 2nd September, 2025, from the Kaduna State Schools Quality Assurance Authority. The circular addresses some of the issues of great concerns in our abnormal state of affairs. It is titled: “Public Notice: Regulation of School Practices and Compliance Requirements.”

The circular addresses four major issues viz. (1) Graduation Ceremonies (2) Unruly Sign-Out Culture (3) Consumable Textbooks, and lastly (4) Increase of School Fees. I am not interested in the last issue. It is not because it is the least disturbing of the listed issues, it is because I think parents who could not afford to pay a hiked school fee have the option to opt for another school. We must learn how to cut our coat according to our cloth.

Nigerians are funny people. It is ironical to note that the more poverty is entrenched as a way of life and education continues to lose value (if it still has value at all), the more we celebrate graduation with mindless revelry. We are utterly ceremonious people. We have pushed graduation ceremonies to the edge so much so that some of these graduation ceremonies are just meaningless. I still cannot understand the rationale for graduation ceremony organized for nursery pupils going to primary one. Also primary five or six pupils going to JSS 1. Or JSS 3 students crossing over to senior classes.

The circular reads: “It has been observed that some schools organize graduation ceremonies for every class level and compel parents/guardians to bear the costs. This practice undermines government’s efforts to reduce the cost of education and improve access for all children.” The circular further says: “Going forward, graduation ceremonies shall be limited strictly to (a) completion of Basic 9 Education (JSS 3) and (b) completion of Senior Secondary Education (SS 3/SSCE).” The circular then says: “In all cases, participation or payment for such events must not be made compulsory.”

Even with the exception that graduation ceremonies could be organized for the completion of basic school and senior secondary education, I still ask if there is a need for it. What exactly is the achievement that is celebrated? Is JSS 3 result a certificate? The school leaving certificate (SSCE) only qualifies one to be a cleaner or messenger. We should not forget that one can also be a cleaner or messenger without the school leaving certificate. So, what are we really celebrating?

What is even more funny about this thoughtless celebration is that it is organized when WAEC results are not out and “celebrants” do not know their fate which could be parallel F9s. What is very glaring is that schools organize these ceremonies to make money from unsuspecting parents who uninformedly think celebrating their wards’ transition from one class to another is a way to show that they are responsible and caring parents. It is even unfortunate that nowadays students do not need to pass exams, learn or know anything to be promoted. All that is needed is to pay school fee. Similarly, students do not need to study well and hard to pass WAEC. All they need to do is to register in the “right” place. Yet, this nonsense (failure) and criminality are celebrated in the name of graduation ceremony just for money.

This is not limited to graduation from secondary school. It extends to graduation from higher institutions. What do Nigerian university graduates celebrate? Well, two things are involved here. The unruly sign-out culture and convocation ceremony. The latter is apparently different. This is often organized to officially award degrees to graduating students and in which case outstanding students are honored with awards and some other token of recognitions. I recall a student of mine who was seemingly disturbed that she might not be able to attend convocation after her graduation. She asked if her inability to mark her presence has any negative impact on her degree certificate. I assured her it is just a ceremony which she might choose not to attend for some genuine reasons.

Many graduates do no like to miss convocation. This is understandable. They want to be seen in convocation gown. This is fine. But to anyone who focuses his or her thought on the challenges of joblessness, saturated labor market, shrinking of labor market, and collapse of businesses and industries due to Nigerian unsmiling economic atmosphere, convocation and convocation gown become meaningless. We still accord specialness to some of these ceremonies because we (Nigerians) are difficult people to understand. To summarily describe Nigerians, I will say we are people to whom suffering and smiling has become a culture. That is not bad anyway.

I asked a final year class of more than two hundred students some weeks ago while I was discussing why Nigeria remains a third world country (now euphemistically called developing country) despite the fact that the country is currently being ruled by the “best” President so far. They were not mistaken in their answers—they all got it right. Then I asked if anyone is confident of securing a meaningful job after graduation. No one exuded the faintest confidence. It is obvious that anyone who claims to be confident of securing a meaningful job after graduation in Nigeria today would be looked at as a naive. The question would be: is your father Tinubu’s friend or a friend to so and so governor or minister? Yes, we have reached that level of hopelessness.

So, with this understanding, why should graduates (whether from secondary school or university) be unruly with sign-out procedures? Do they really exhibit, by their unruly behaviors, the economic reality in the country? Are they really thinking about the future? But I think it is because these unruly students had actually passed through schools but schools did not, for once, pass through them. A true reflection of real education is seen in the ways and manners of those who acquire it.

In place of that exhibition of stupidity and unruly behavior, the circular I am writing to celebrate says: “School are expected to provide well-supervised alternatives—such as farewell assemblies, talent exhibitions, mentorship handover sessions or other structured activities—that allow students to celebrate in a safe, dignified, and meaningful manner.

Then the last point: consumable textbooks in our primary and secondary schools. It is heart-warming that a government is addressing this exploitation of parents by publishing companies and school managements. These textbooks have built-in answer spaces that prevent their reuse by other students. This is like callously milking financially emaciated parents—unnecessarily and by force.

The Kaduna State Government now recommends (or rather commands) that “With effect from 1st September, 2026, all publishers are hereby directed to provide separate optional workbooks for individualized exercises, while the main textbooks shall remain useable.” Government intervening to correct this abnormality and nonsense makes sense. I hope publishers and school managements will not have their way to continue inflicting hardship on parents. This beautiful circular can be said to be different from action and implementation. This is Nigeria.

While I applaud the Kaduna State Government for this bold step, I urge it to make sure these directives are followed with action and monitoring for compliance. Other state governments are encouraged to follow suit. We can be better.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com