Students, Cultural Imperialism And School Owners In Nigeria -By Dr. Austin Orette

I am in receipt of a letter that asked parents to pay for an excursion to England. I was very perturbed because this goes beyond the mandate of the school. These kids barely know the geography of Nigeria, and you want to export them to another culture for indoctrination and cultural imperialism.

What is London for the Nigerian child? Are we still under colonialism? This program has nothing to improve the child except to give them a false sense of elitism which has destroyed Nigeria.

In these tough economic times, you are asking parents to cough out so much money for the vanity project of indulgent children and nouveaux rich parents who want vicarious existence through their children. I weep for my country.

Nigeria used to be a place where the children of the rich and poor went to the same school without anyone being subjected to any form of alienation. It is becoming very clear that the Nigerian educational system has been bastardized by actions like these.

We send our children to learn and have a better understanding of themselves and the world, but you are teaching them a sense of entitlement. As someone who has travelled around the world, there is nothing any of those kids will gain from this stupid enterprise than egotism that alienates them from their mates. Even if I can afford it, it does not make any economic sense. I will never participate in this hubris you mistake for education. It appears your school has substituted foreign cultures for education.

Teach the Nigerian child how to be Nigerian. Education is supposed to start from the home. It appears a large percentage of the parents are people who came into so much money without a modicum of common sense. This is the reason why they consider it a thing of dignity when their child is being culturally miseducated. This trend where everything foreign is romanticized must stop. We should never raise our children to feel inferior to anyone.

The moral decadence that has become prevalent in Nigeria is due to this wrong education of the Nigerian child and his parents. They employ maids for their children; drive them to school in expensive limousines. At the end, the child grows up entitled and does not have any sense of service or allegiance to his community, as he is trained from childhood that the world owes him a living.

We must teach our children how to serve. Service to others is the rent we pay for the space we occupy. If parents must take their children overseas, that should be done in their private time not under the pretext of education.

A good education will be an excursion to the numerous slums in Lagos and let the children produce an assignment about creating sustainable neighborhoods that are livable.

If you don’t stop this practice, I will make a formal protest to the Ministry of Education and your school and other schools that are introducing this odious culture should be sanctioned.

The Nigerian child must be trained to think instead of making him a consumer of foreign cultures that have disdain for our way of life.

I used to complain of wayward parents who have destroyed Nigeria until I found out that the Nigerian schools are becoming incubating chambers for producing wayward and dysfunctional children who will perpetuate the vicious cycle in the Nigerian decay.

DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS