THE PROBLEM WITH AFRICA 26

Some hens were brought to our house and locked at the backyard. Every hen would feed and freely walk around while the new ones won’t dare, they will keep running away from us.
The hens are so used to us that they are not scared to take food at proximity from us or walk pass right under our legs to go wherever they want to go but these set of new hens couldn’t and kept jumping around in panic whenever any member of the family gets close. This made them not to enjoy freedom like the rest of the hens. Most times it takes quite a long while before these new hens would adjust and become bold to share spaces with us and some would never learn to be at ease when we get close.
One day I decided to investigate why the hens that had gotten used to us without fear do, I observed newly hatched chickens following their mother to my legs to pick food and to walk through without fear at that moment I realized that they were taught to be bold in our presence, so they grew up bold and free to get close to us. Because we have to live together sharing same space, if they have to survive, they must learn to get as close as possible to us if not fear would deny them food and freedom.
One of our problems in Africa is that we weren’t trained to think and face our problems ourselves. Our parents would make sure we lack nothing and won’t tutor us on how to provide for ourselves by providing services through creative thinking. And when they suddenly get tired of providing for us, we are left with no skills just certificates the government who had issued it to us and the companies in Africa don’t trust, and then we are faced with jumping from one office to another looking for who would employ us in vain.
Most African parents think they have achieved all they need to by training their children through college, but that’s a huge lie.
To help the African child, you must teach him how to think, how to invent and how to put his knowledge to use. The proof a child understands a thing or deserves a certificate is what he is able to create or the services he could render with that knowledge he had acquired in school and not the exams he can pass.
The only thing the African parent celebrates in the African child the ability to speak and properly spell in the colonial language as if perfect comprehension of the language is our ticket to a better society.
We now have graduates who could speak English, French, Spanish and Portuguese and yet very unfruitful is solving our societal problems.
What our economics, science, engineers etc. graduates can do in our today’s world is to speak English or the colonial language fluently and nothing more.
We need more than speaking the colonial language if we want to take the lead in the economic affairs of the world. We need to know how to put our knowledge to practice, how to use what we’ve studied to solve societal problems.
To be able to do this, it has to begin at home, parents need to ask their children what they could do by what they’ve learnt in school and not just if they could make correct sentences and spell accurately.
They need to make demand of schools to teach useful and relevant skills that are practical and relevant to the type of problems we are living in Africa.
So when the African child graduates, he won’t seek for Job, he’ll create one because he had learned how to think creatively and create value by solving problems within his society thus developing a better Africa.

God bless you

Promise Ikpe