Many in our community have asked me to comment on the UK schools requiring Nigerian students (secondary, polytechnics and universities) to write standardized English language testing exams before they can study in the UK. I understand that pain: why should the UK tell Nigerians that we do not speak and write “enough” English when few of us can speak for two minutes in any native language without switching to English?
Looking at it from that angle misses the whole point. The point is that academic “inequality” has widened in Nigeria. Check the last ten JAMB and WAEC results. Look at the best students where they are coming from. If you do not know, most of those A-hitters are products of top-grade private schools. Those extremely expensive schools continue to outperform when the public schools have faded.
But every person wants to travel to the UK since as kids they have been telling us how great the UK is. I knew so much about London in my Geography class than any city in Nigeria! And I was taught how many days the Queen of England spent in Nigeria – and all the places she visited. Who rode a train route? (Nwachukwu). Why would I not like to live in her land if they are so amazing like that?
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So, everyone wants to travel to the UK to see those nice things we read in books in Nigeria. For the UK, how do you filter? That is where the exam comes into play.
UK, my request is simple: remove the expiration date, and if it must expire, put 10 years there, not 2 years.
People, allow UK schools to run their shows; there are no rights there. I will administer Igbo Izugbe to them any day they apply to study in Ovim, Abia State, and they must pass to be admitted to Igbo Mahadum. Unfortunately, the UK people have no interests for that.
Victory has relations; vanquish is an orphan. A few decades ago, BA would stamp your Nigerian passport with a visa at the counter to enable you to travel to watch Liverpool from Lagos, and if after the game, you have time for the Yankees, you can buy a ticket and as you board, they will put the US visa on the same passport. But we decided the other way, and today, even a PhD English graduate from Nigeria is not spared by Canada on the IELTS exam. O di egwu!
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Cries of a conquered nation and people.
So, with all the noise about understanding economic principles of ‘supply and demand’, isn’t this embarrassing? Nigerians complaining about being asked to sit for IELTS and its equivalents, those guys are very much aware that we are jokers.
Those exams are never about testing your English language competency, it’s part of letting you know that you need them more than they need you; unfortunately we are not close to being as smart as we claim.
Countries set standards based on how much they value themselves, if everyone starts scrambling to get into Nigeria to school or live hear, both our visa fees and admission requirements will skyrocket, it’s not a complicated science.
The UK citizens are not more intelligent than Nigerians, so why are Nigerians jostling to school there? If you think it’s about quality or the system, you can create same and hype it as much as you want. The effectiveness of any educational system is determined by how it meets national needs and aspirations, tell yourself the truth, how much of our national aspirations have ever been met with the UK educational system? I don’t like nonsense, and we do a lot nonsense here.
Cure yourself of slave mentality, that’s all.
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