A new kind of summer school

The bad tyres of my car led me to a new understanding of summer lessons. Here was me driving into a garage in Abuja to fix my car tyres, which were already gyrating like they were in a kegite colloquium. The garage was reckoned as one of the best in Abuja. The proprietor did his job meticulously to your satisfaction. So, I drove in and parked.

The proprietor walked up to me and, after we had exchanged pleasantries, he cast a glance at the four tyres and called on his boys to remove the back tyres. He pointed to the exact tyre to be removed and said, “that one is bad. You need to change it”. I asked to know if changing it would solve my problem. He said yes.

Just then, two young boys showed up with a heavy-duty jack. They affixed it properly and the younger of the boys picked up the wheel spanner and started undoing the wheel nuts. I did not attempt to stop him. Rather, I was surprised that such a little boy could loosen the wheel nuts and pull out the rear tyre of an SUV. I considered the tyre too heavy for his age. I watched the little boy roll the tyre to a machine where he deflated it and pulled out some iron bars and rods to begin the process of detaching the tyre from the rim. At that point, the older boy came and assisted him. Within minutes, they had replaced the tyre with a new one.

As I watched the young boy work, happily too, my mind raced to child labour and its nuances. I wondered why such a little boy would be subjected to such a task. Then I asked him what he was doing at the workshop.

“It is my daddy’s workshop and I am helping him”, he said. Helping? I wondered. I asked if he was in school and he said, “Yes, JSS 1.” A JSS 1 student? That’s basic school level seven. He is a kid. His mates are at home either watching television or attending summer school at the same school where their parents paid heavily for the term. As I looked at the little boy and the seriousness he attached to what he was doing, I felt he was being overworked. That was when I approached his dad with a question.

“Why are you punishing this little boy with this sort of task,” I asked. His dad looked at me. He also looked at his boy. Their eyes caught and they smiled. I looked stupid!

He then said to me, “that is his summer school.” His father’s response opened me to a new reality. He further said, “He has been coming here since school went on vacation and he has learnt quite a lot. At least, he alone can effectively loosen and work on the tyres of smaller vehicles. If the wheel nuts are too tight, he will use longer pipes. He is doing well.”

Just then, my mind raced forward and started making calculations for the future. I was imagining how skilful the young boy would be by the time he advanced to SSS3 and even to the university. Several questions ran through my mind. I concluded that by the time the young boy gets into the university, he would have perfected the art of car tyres and wheels management and repairs, especially in the areas of alignment and balancing such that he could also set up a workshop near his school, earn money and pay his way through, even to his doctorate level. He could also become an employer of labour while still in school. For the little boy, his dad was opening up a future of possibilities. Then I started thinking that many of us may have wasted money and time sending our kids back to their regular schools for what their teachers ingeniously designed as summer school.

I left the workshop thoroughly educated. But it did not end there. When I got home, I looked at Omenuko, his laptop and the graphics he had learnt to design on the phone. I thought that it would be best to send him to a computer school to learn coding skills.

That made me visit a nearby computer institute to see what was on offer. The sight that confronted me there was the sight of little kids running about their fingers on computers. It jolted me. I saw many little children undergoing training in computer programming and related skills. It dawned on me that I was coming late. Of course, I have never been early. But here I am faced with the reality that, for many parents, things have changed.

Get my meaning. School is good. But the school that leaves a child with skills that he/she can live on is always better. I had always tried to understand why a child who had spent between 90 days and 120 days in a school term should be subjected, during vacation, to further lectures on the same subjects he had studied these past days. I accept that vacations are always intended to get children to relax away from serious academic work. If so, why call them back for classes under the guise of summer lessons? I know, like you do, that the target is to keep children busy and through that make money from parents. But what skills do summer lessons leave the kids with? This is the reason I am now better convinced that summer lessons should be spent in workshops where kids are educated with skills that would help them in their tomorrow. After all, the purpose of education is to make the child better. Becoming a better person means adding value to yourself and positively affecting your immediate environment. This is something that only people with the relevant skills can do and very well too. Let’s get it: being useful to oneself is not necessarily about possessing the best certification. It is about being certified in what one knows best how to do.

A child that grows with skills will be in a better position to add value to him/herself and society, if, the child knows how well to use the skills. For instance, if a child learns great footballing skills but wastes his/her time in betting kiosks, chances are that football scouts won’t find him. He/she may end up being a miserable lout and a menace to society.

The world that is opening up before our children is one that requires proper guidance. I guess that is why one is called a parent. Guiding kids into their future is not just about buying them the best of toys, clothes and pizza. It is also about helping to bring them to the point where they see the possibilities that are there for those who have the necessary skills to become self-reliant and, possibly, job and wealth creators too.