Month: October 2015

The role of competition in education

Competition according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the act or process of trying to get or win something (such as prize or a higher level of success) that someone else is also trying to get or win. Academically, competition is seen as a scenario where students strive to win by being the smartest or fastest

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Are you there yet?

“They all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “Survival”. A word that aptly describes man’s need to live, to have life, to have breath, to be alive. Man

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Becoming a Better Student in Nigeria

Being a successful student in Nigeria is neither tough nor simple, but depends greatly on your efforts, environment and commitment. It is appropriate to note that a student’s failure stems from the effort/commitment put in or the environment that influences this effort. The Situation in Our Institutions of Learning Since 2011, there has been a

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The Mirrored Window: Education Beyond The Looking Glass

The process of education is one of facilitating learning, and through learning we naturally grow. It is my belief that this expansion cannot happen without windows, through which we reciprocally interact with the word and allow ourselves the space in which to grow, but I would argue also that one needs mirrors in order to

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Hollow Victory: My Competitive Education Revisited

Childhood I’m 7. Twinkly crinkly Mrs McClintock calls me to her desk at the front of the classroom. I enter the cloud of her distinctive aroma (eau de lavender, cats and chalk). “You came first”, she says. Seeing the blank look on my face, she smiles and explains, “You came top of the class. In

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A flawed perfection

The invisible barrier is apparent. I’m separated from the others, silently excluded from their interactions and conversations, their voices akin to the silence of white noise fading into the background. I am judged by the angles of my face and the scars on my skin. Their faces morphing into ones of grotesque disgust, as they

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Has Sydney J. Harris gone out of the window instead?

Please, who has the carpenter’s telephone number? I want to hire a carpenter to construct a twelve-foot, 75x75mm timber cupboard for me to keep my certificates: my basic education certificate, senior high school certificate, HND in accountancy, first degree in Business Administration, second degree in Law, short course in tropical agriculture (animal husbandry), Ghana Stock

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