By Matthew Ozah
Among a group of young
men gathered in a barber’s shop, the other day, as I had a hair-cut, the topic
of the conversation was how to gain admission into the institution of higher
learning to acquire basic knowledge and be awarded a degree certificate.
One among them said: “Why would I waste my
time in the four walls of a university for four, maybe five or six years,
strike inclusive to obtain a sheet of paper called certificate”? The easiest
way, as he reckoned, was to visit Oluwole and within minutes, you have a
certificate at hand to brandish as a graduate and gain employment with.
Without mincing words, education is the key to
unlock success in today’s society. Hence, it has become everyone’s desire to
acquire a moderate qualification in any field of endeavour. It is, however,
disheartening to say that many unscrupulous persons, like the young man in the
barber’s shop, in their desperate quest to reap where they did not sow, are
ready to go at any length to achieve their aim.
Such is the case in point, as recently reported in Cross River
State, over certificate
scam, where a head teacher was demoted to a gateman and a security man equally
became a teacher.
Over the years, the decay in the education
sector has been alarming and a lot has been cited as the cause. Of course,
teachers with fake certificates are not without a share of the blame, as they
cannot give what they do not have. More so, paucity of funds and the
inconsistency of the education system among others have contributed to the
decadence.
