Depending from where you look at it.

Education one could say starts from the day a child is born and ends with life, this is actually true because learning to feed, walk, talk and improving of cognitive senses all takes place from the first second in a child’s birth. These initial learning curves are usually thought by parents, guardians, relatives or in some cases legal appointed guardians and in some cases these initial learning curves  comes in full circle between the ages of four to seven years of a child´s growing circle, at the completion of these initial learning which takes place in the comfort of the child’s home surrounded by loved ones.

Upon completion of the initial stage of learning the child then moves on to the next learning stage which is then not (in majority of cases) taught by learned professionals in the educational field, at this stage children are taught to assembly and reassembling of their individual cognition. Children at the second stage of learning are taught to identify things like numbers, plans, animals and so forth.

Most countries demand education to be compulsory for children between a stipulated age range, in fact education is theoretically compulsory all over the world for children but however, the age range at which it is compulsory has its own geolocational dependency which could be social, religious, gender or even culturally related depending on the region in question.

In most western countries governments invest great efforts to make schooling a pleasant by providing cheap affordable transport systems for students, security during school starting and ending hours, providing clean and quiet learning environment for the students, access to classes online and so forth, while the opposite is the case of most developing countries. The educational system in some of these developing countries is so stressful and bad that children living in western countries can not even begin to imagine.

I once had a presentation on education in the developing world at an high school in Berlin, when I started showing pictures and playing some short video clips on the activities that normal children in developing countries go through on a daily basis just to receive education, to my surprise, the children present in my presentation were overwhelmed with sorrow, tears and disbelief that in this day and age children still suffer to be educated.

As a case study let´s take Nigeria, with an upward of about   32.6 million new entry to primary schools each year Nigeria has over 65.9 million  students, I must point out that the total number of students or children within school age in Nigeria is more than the total population of  Greece, Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary and Austria combined together.

Children within the school ages in Nigeria have to, on a daily basis contend with the fear of kidnapping, robbery, rape, molestation, abuse, even in some cases scolding by teachers, parents and those who they should grow to love and respect. I travelled to Lagos State Nigeria just to have a first hand experience on the challenges faced by Nigerian students.

In my quest for understanding, I undertook interviews of two students from each school levels, namely , Primary, Secondary, and University levels, the interview which I had with the students all point to concerns expressed by the students, for example, while speaking to one of the Primary students (10 years old) I notices that he was not really focused on my questions, I paused questioning then asked him, what is on your mind Emmanuel ? he replied, I  we have food home when I get home because I last ate yesterday noon but in the night there was no food and morning also.

After hearing these words, I decided to take a new questioning approach so that I could hear the information raw and not structured by my line of questioning. When I met the Primary school girl (10 years old) I began my questioning her with asking of her aspirations and dreams for her future, sure she began with my much-anticipated response of unadulterated positivity about the best jobs in life and wealth.

When I observed the brightness in her face and sensed a fairly good atmosphere of trust, then I asked, what is really in your mind? what do you worry about?  She had like some few minutes of pulse and then she answered , my mother has a restaurant so every day after school I go straight to her business and there I must wash the dishes and clean, it makes me very tired in the evening that I can not even learn when we get home, even sometimes I cannot even make my homework.

The high birth rate in Nigeria have also given rise to ramshackle schools popping up in each and every less opportune areas in Nigeria, but do not get deceived  the so called ramshackle schools are also not free, in earnest, A GREAT NUMBER OF Nigerian students attend sub-standard schools and still have to pay for attending such schools. According to several researches on the effect of stress on learning there is a general consensus that stress at the time of learning will not yield any good result and might lead to memory retrieval issues.

In 2016 an article published by Susanne Vogel & lars Schwabe clearly support the fact  that stress is a negative factor in learning  even pointing out the repercussion.

 
“While stress around the time of learning is thought to enhance memory formation, thus leading to robust memories, stress markedly impairs memory retrieval, bearing, for instance, the risk of underachieving at exams. ” A major way to reduce the stress level is the implementation of online schooling and classrooms.

Many schools in Nigeria claim to have online facilities but the truth is that most of their online facilities are dysfunctional or lack proper management or even bug ridden poorly coded platforms making the students online presence not a pleasant one.

 Good news, while planning to write this blog I did a search for online schooling or learning possibilities for Nigerian students, I did find some online learning platform but  in my opinion I found this (https://9jaacademy.com/)  one to be the very best of them all, my reasons are as follows:

1)    It is (at least that is what it says ) absolutely free to all students.
2)    Schools can register in their entirety meaning that all classes, all subjects, all academic and non-academic staffs access, all students of the school.
3)    Several interactive rooms where students can interact with students from other schools thereby exchanging knowledge and experience.
4)    Several exams and test centres which registered schools can set exams for their students.
5)    Multiple school branches possible 
6)    Direct link to global online library.
7)    Bookshops
8)    Access for parents or guardians to be able to partake in the students schooling activities.
9)    Fully customisable school platform that allows each school to design their school layouts and colours to match their requirements.
10)    Schools will save the management cost of owing a web learning platform
11)    School blogs submission and publishing 

Even the best of all is that at  https://9jaacademy.com/  now schools can enrol for free and use the service, it will be a good thing for Nigerian schools to start looking at ways to reduce the daily stress faced by students by giving every student access to https://9jaacademy.com/ , the reality of the day in Nigeria is hard even for children, this issue for Nigerian students have gone beyond donations and organizations it is time for action.

                                                “Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.”
                                                                                                                                            - Jane Wagner