“What would you like the government to do for you?”
This was the question ANN went to town with to get the pulse of Nigerian children in honour of the Children’s Day.
The age bracket of the respondents was between 6 and 11 and they were mostly pupils of various schools in Nnewi and Awka. They were 10 in number.
Respondent 1: I want Government to give our school light and fan so that we will not be sweating again while they are teaching us.
Commentary: I agree that steady power supply will greatly enhance the learning experience of Nigerian children.
Respondent 2: I want government to give us free education. They keep chasing us from school for not paying school fees.
Commentary: Government schools in United Kingdom provide books and education free for all her inhabitants.
Respondent 3: I want government to give my daddy job. He is a graduate and does not have a good job. He said his job as a journalist cannot take care of bills.
Commentary: The truth of the matter is that most parents are living below poverty line. This is most especially among the graduates. This is why Anambra State government has come up with this idea of empowering young people with IT skills. With IT skills and suchlike, I believe the next generation of parents will be better equipped to provide quality education for their children.
Respondent 4: My mummy beats me a lot. My daddy is not usually at home. We are five in number and I am the first child.
Commentary: Now I am a parent, I have realized that indeed, children get abused here in Nigeria, all in the name of training. I have since stopped hitting my children after realizing how traumatizing this is for the kids. I am devising other means of keeping my children properly cultured.
Respondent 5: I want government to give us clinic in our school. We don’t have a clinic and when we get sick, they call our parents to come and take us.
Commentary: Many fatalities that have been recorded in Nigerian schools have been due to the inability of schools to provide sufficient first aid for accident victims in school environs.
Respondent 6: I want government to give a big library where we can get all kinds of books and movies. I love good story books and cartoons. My friends tell me stories of cartoons but we don’t have a TV in my house.
Commentary: You cannot over emphasize the importance of books and more books as well as other learning aids for young developing minds. I saw a scientific claim that children have over 80 per cent of their brains active between 1 and 3 years old.
Respondent 7: I want government to buy us a lot of toys and playthings.
Commentary: Research has shown that toys nurture children’s’ cognitive development during the most important childhood years. Toys stimulate concentration levels and enhance attention span and memory. So, the young lad is right that a lot of toys are needed in schools as the place where the child spends most of his/her wakeful part of the day.
Respondent 8: I want government to give us pipe borne water.
Commentary: Business brought me to a certain primary school and I had cause to walk by the toilet area. I met it all smelly and dirty. On inquiry, I discovered that the school was having issues with water supply and this contributed immensely to why the toilets were so unkept. Imagine the kind of infections these kids would be exposed to.
Respondent 9: I want government to reduce the number of cars on the road. They make a lot of noise and the big cars send a lot of smoke into our classroom making us to cough and get sick.
Commentary: I was really awed at the sheer intelligence of this submission by a nine year old boy. Indeed, the Nigerian government at large and Anambra State government in particular should make policies that would reduce the number of engine vehicles on the road and make cycling stylish for civil servants. Our airs will be cleaner. We would be healthier as a people and smoke will stop entering classrooms where pupils are studying and making them cough.
Respondent 10: I want government to buy me cleaner and pencil and a motor bike so I can move super fast.
Commentary: This came from a four year old boy. It was quite funny and I thought that would make a nice way to end this discourse. There is no gain saying the fact that these kids have really given us a fresher perspective to the problems bedeviling our society especially those ones that directly affect our children; our future; the next generation of Nigerians, Ndi Anambra in particular.
@ostareze
