The Classroom

_{Photo by Ivan Aleksic}

During high school, there had been a time when my dad had asked me if I'd like to switch schools to a government school, I had said no for two reasons. The first was because I have a phobia of being the new kid in a place where everyone else knows each other and I'm just the odd one out and the second reason was because the government school in my street at the time were notorious to be schools with really bad kids and they were always over populated.

I remember I'd see my friends taking their own chairs and desk to school just because there wasn't enough in the school to go round for everyone. So all of that were the reasons why I didn't want to go to a government school.

Unfortunately, what I thought I had escaped in high school has now become my reality now that I'm in the university.

You see, aside from the thousands of problems facing the educational system in Nigeria, another thing I feel like people don't really talk much about is the overpopulation in classrooms. Motivated by greed, schools gives out thousand of admissions to students knowing fully well that their classrooms isn't well spaced enough to accommodate everyone of those of those admissions. But they don't always care about that, all they care about is the fees they will be collecting.

I had a really important practical class earlier today and I almost left before the practical even began. The only reason I had stayed back was because it was a very important practical class that I couldn't afford to miss due to the fact that at the end of the semester, we'd all have to recreate those same exact practical that was done in the class and if you weren't there when it happened, it would be really difficult to get it on your own.

Why would I had left? Well aside from the fact that there was no power supply in the practical lab, the whole place was overpopulated which made it really stuffy and very uncomfortable to teach or learn. I was sweating in places I never knew I could sweat. And to make the whole thing worse, it was a two hour class and we were only an hour in.

Luckily for us, the man ended the class early (probably because he too was sweating in places he shouldn't be sweating) and I had to forfeit the other classes and call it a day because I needed to go home to go take a bath and I knew I wouldn't be able to meet up with the other classes.

Things like this is what makes me reluctant to go to classes sometimes but then I really don't have a choice but to attend because if I don't, I will suffer for it in the nearest future.