Life becomes a bitter experience and an impenetrable labyrinth – a path full of monstrous hurdles, and obstacles for those who hover outside the precincts of the academic walls in desperation, in an effort to acquire higher education, and of course join the bandwagon of paper heroes and elites, and acquire the envious epithet of a graduate. When they learn too soon that, their cherished dream of becoming intellectual adventurers and carving niches for themselves as members of the high profile achievers see no daylight, fail to materialize.
Some of the “failures” would savor defeat and accept their fate, that they were not destined to reach the enviable and the most important pinnacle of the academic ladder. But would never fail to curse their fate and heap blames on themselves for displaying much irresponsibility and recklessness at high school and neglecting their books – idling in lassitude and failing to grasp what would have propelled them to become some bodies in the future. They would continually curse themselves especially if their endeavors in other areas proves unsuccessful.
Some too armed with the weapon that failure rather propels them to success, would venture again to remedy the situation. It doesn’t matter to them if it takes them years of repeated attempts to get to the university. They would make all effort to garner the required grade by continually writing the exams until their granddaughters will by pass them to the university and they would still be there armed with pessimism that they will finally make it. They become obsessed with sanguine hope and optimism and continually recites their slogan that education is not a race – they will get there. They will also get to the golden campus where complexity is the order of the day. Where education becomes a real vibrant entity and a tool. Where their maturity would be assured and they would shed their childhood idiosyncrasies. For the university is for the matured student and different from high school. At the university, teachers become lecturers, headmasters are referred to as chancellors and dormitories become halls. Everything there is complex. The prospective academicians who will finally come to the conclusion that getting to the university for complex impracticable theories is really tough and difficult and that all the years they spent trying to get there was a sheer waste of time and that they were building castles or lecture halls in the air will finally give up their pursuit.
Some too simply refuse to accept defeat. They do not humbly carry their crosses to be crucified by the exams council. They simply refuse to die. Their assertion is that they have come far – abnegating everything to pursue education and to face frustration at the dying moment of their academic endeavor and sacrifice is but a high price to pay, the culminating point to relent ignominiously is something they can not endure. Their poor grades which threatens to be their doom and gloom is reflected on a piece of paper and for them to be relegated to the doldrums of conundrum is just too great. How can they struggle through thick and thin been pursued by pharaoh and his militant charioteers, crossing red seas of academia bearing in mind the promise of reaching the promise land of education only to be told that their eyes will see the hill of knowledge, the towers of legon but their feet will never step there? This is unfair. They will exclaim. The educational system is unjustifiable. Education for all is the policy of educationists but it seems that every level in the ladder is designed to sieve out the few – for they are deemed to be the best to further their education to the next level and again to be sieved. It continues like that until only few people come out getting any meaningful education. The majority are left out to rot in the lowermost echelons of dire ignorance.
Aware of the structure, they refuse to fail. If A’s and B’s is what they need to get to the university, then it is very easy for them to get that. They will resort to unconventional means to get the A’s on papers to enable them enter the university. Either they will produce fake results or bribe officials at the top hierarchy or capitalize on the vicious influence of relatives in high places to get there. Fraudulent means are employed to enable them pass through. When they are caught, they step out but when the authorities fail to detect their academic maneuvers and nefarious adventures, they go with it. They come out with their sham degrees for privileges and opportunities.
Necessity is the mother of invention. It is embarrassing and humorous to see how the academic brains are outwitted all the time by people who do not qualify. It is about time they see the uselessness of the pieces of papers they offer to students as degrees and certificates.. What does it denote? Excellence? If it is meant to show the expertise, the academic exploits and the capabilities of the earner, the holder, then it might as well pass as the criminal record, the evidence of their vicious craftiness. It is a living symbol of their charlatanism and chicanery and crooked propensities. If the emphasis would be laid on certificates alone and not the ingenuity, the creative resourcefulness and the scintillating talents of the people, then the educational institutions will always churn out half baked intellectuals, idle nincompoops full of the rhetoric of theories without having the requisite knowledge of implementing those abstract ideas.
Falling standards of education and the shallow mendacity of students are a glaring example of how they are obsessed with passing their exams and not making any effort to acquire knowledge. There seems to be a huge gap between education proper and the acquisition of knowledge. most students deem it less important to strive towards academic excellence but rather channel their energies to using vicious means of getting the required grades. And the interesting thing is that nowadays, it is not only exams or thesis that will qualify a student in academia. Money and the secret weapon between the thighs of the womenfolk. The ladies will parade campus for years exhibiting their new found status, partying and reveling, indulging in toyish, coquettish and childish activities which has nothing to do with education and eventually get a depraved lecturer without moral scruples for an evil deal. The certificates that has relegated hard working and earnest students to the gutters, the golden fleece that was portrayed to be the ultimate, the symbol of academic excellence and intellectuality is finally debased by been rewarded for cheap sex. Very soon the young men will also offer themselves for cheap sex to garner the certificates because the gay men are gradually penetrating the walls of academia.
Modern myths place so much emphasis on certificates that it becomes necessary to invent one. And that is the norm of the day. Most holders of seemingly excellent certificates made it themselves. Some simply go to the corrupt institutions and buy the papers. They are able with their fake certificates to reach high places and job fulfillment and they cause a lot of damage before they are caught, if they are even caught at all. When people bemoan their inability to enter the university, it is for nothing but the loss of the papers.
How do the populace understand and interpret education, knowledge and mental development and certificates? Certificates exist to certify, to guarantee that a person has indeed been trained in a field or has acquired a certain amount of knowledge or training and there by his or her proficiency in the area mentioned in the paper is indisputable. Yet, in recent times, people acquire the certificates without the requisite knowledge. people have come to accept the fallacy that certificates are the passports to success in life and as long s they acquire it, they will be successful.
Alma mater. The fact that certain people attended certain schools, their success in the job market is assured. Ones alma mater and certificate is all that is needed. At times if one is fortunate to have attended a prestigious school, the only thing to do is to mention the name of the school and you are met with smiles and whether you qualify or not, your desires to some extent are satisfied. This also gives the clue that when one is able to get a good school, and which schools are the bad ones, who are responsible for its upgrading? If certain schools are devoid of educational materials, lack amenities and the curriculum is meant to impart half knowledge to the students, why not raze those schools down since they rather impart ignorance and churn out mediocre persons. With a prestigious school as your alma mater, you are assured of great success.
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