Schooling then & schooling now

Greetings everyone 🙌

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Of a truth, the schooling system in Nigeria has changed a lot from what it was back in the days of the 90s and early 2000s. I was among those who attended school in the early 2000s, and those memories of what school was are still very much intact.

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In response to this prompt, one thing I enjoyed about schooling in those days was the academic competition.
I don't know about other schools or other states, but for me, I attended one of the most well-known public secondary schools in my state. Yes, I mean the whole state. My school was known for producing intelligent people due to how they didn't condone any failure. Even if only one student passed a promotional exam, only that student would be promoted. This pushed us to school ourselves into an academic competitive mode. It was so intense that during exams, we covered our writing papers to prevent anyone from peeping, fearing that they might pass us when the results came out.

The school was a public one, as I said earlier, and it had a community touch on us because we were not as privileged as students in private schools. But even so, we didn't compromise on personal studies just to pass and beat everyone in the class.

There was a time when 12 out of 26 students in my class were promoted to SS3. It was shocking because the school management wanted to filter out unserious students with a tougher marking scheme, and even the favorite intelligent ones were filtered out.

Back then, promotional examinations were organized (set, marked, and scored) by the headquarters in the state, unlike the modern-day pattern where teachers in the school set, mark, and score the exams, and if many students fail, the principal or proprietor orders the teachers to add more marks.
Oh yes, I taught in a school like that during my NYSC, and I was mad at the proprietor when I was ordered to promote everyone just to make a good name for the school.
Although it was scary for us back then because even if we read the whole world and wrote well in the exam, only they decided the ultimate outcome. Looking back at those scenes now, it all brings smiles and fond memories.
Back then, it was very hard to pass WAEC. But now, children pass it with ease, having distinctions in all the subjects.
Some years back, It was a shocking moment when one of my siblings forwarded his WAEC result to me and I saw distinction in 8 subjects including Maths, English, Chemistry and Physics. I asked him "how?" And he admitted that the exam was full of malpractice.

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One of the things I didn't like back then was school labor.

It was compulsory for students in public schools to work as gardeners for the school and even on the teachers' farm.
Our labor day used to happen every Thursday, and it was mandatory for every student to come to school with either a cutlass or a wooden cutlass. Even if it wasn't announced on Wednesday before Thursday, we just knew, and failure to bring such tools meant judgment day. The defaulters would be flogged, and then they'd be given their portion to clear, often needing to borrow working tools from friends.

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Many times, we left the school premises to work on the teacher's farm, all in the name of pleasing the teacher, though he wouldn't give us marks for that; it was just to be recognized by him, and even then, those activities felt like forced labor.

Nowadays, students are living a different life. There's nothing called school labor anymore, except for those in typical rural areas that haven't been modernized.

I would have added flogging to the list of things I didn't like, but no, flogging helped a lot in those days, so it isn't bad.🧐

Thank you for reading.

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_{This is my entry to the Week 106, Edition 02 of the Weekly Featured contest in Hive Learners Community}