Most African nations are business-inclined! Many times hardship leads to improvisation, then innovations, which in turn creates room for businesses. The scenarios to qualify these are just endless and is visible in regular day-to-day life in Africa. Even the churches have become business centres but let's not go holy. Let's tackle schools/education first!
Education is meant to be an art, a journey towards personal growth but education in many African nations have become sheer business. Start from primary schools; every nook and cranny in many African nations, has a school! Any small space available is turned into a school and it is not shocking to find one teacher tending to 3 classes because the school owner wants to cut on salary. Now this cuts down on standard as many of these teachers employed in these low-quality schools are not certified. Many of these teachers are simply students who just finished secondary school awaiting to get admission into University.
Ofcourse, gaining entry into the University is a day's topic. There are secondary school students in Africa who have had to wait 10 years to get into the University.
First of all, in many of these nations, there are just a few qualified universities to host the multitudes of secondary school graduates yearly, so there has to be a way to filter this number and that is where middle-man examination-boards come in; another avenue for business. Instead of having these myriads of students get admission into the University, they are made to apply to write exams, external to the University qualification exams. This places an additional barrier against entry into University and more money made from sales of exam application forms from these third-party organization/boards.
Ofcourse, if you failed, you will have to wait an entire year again; but just if you passed, you will have to go and face another examination, set by the University itself and when you fail that one, you will have to wait another whole year to attempt two exams again!
In some African nations, it is not unheard-of that examination results are ceased. In cases like this, no results are released and you will have to wait one whole year again to attempt these exams again.
I tell you, this is just the beginning! After all the rigor of gaining admission into the University, you can be sure of spending 5 to 7 years instead of the regular 4 years for a Bachelor's degree, all because education in Africa is sheer business. Apart from being put under compulsion by lecturers to bribe your way through University, there is always the common chance that your University semester exam results are missing and you compulsorily have to spend additional years, to redo course that you never failed. Ofcourse, even if you come back the next year to simply partake in one-course exam so as to be cleared for graduation, you will be made to pay whole tuition-fees; "extra un-recorded revenue for the school"!
Many students become more of business men and half-baked students afterall. Before the end of university, many students have set up their own means to create improvised business building on the setup of their lecturers. No doubt, you will find students impersonating and writing exams on behalf of others for money or creating handbooks for sale in the name of a lecturer, only for it to be exposed much later!
Lot goes on in Africa!
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