By Recently, I was with some educators; they were discussing a critical issue. The discussion was about a young girl whose parents rushed to the university too early; she was about 14 when she left secondary school. After secondary school, she was registered for ‘A’ levels and gained admission into the university as a Direct Entry student. She graduated from the university before she was 18 years old.
Now, the part that caught my attention in the story. The young girl graduated with a very poor grade; also, she was influenced by bad friends and ended up doing really bad things.
Graphic illustration representing the struggles and challenges of rushing children into advanced academic stages prematurely
This story reminded me of another girl I taught when I worked in a private school somewhere in Ibadan. The girl was about eight years old when she was admitted into JSS1. The parents said she was very brilliant when she was in primary school and so she got a ‘double promotion’. However, her experience in the secondary school was a very bad one. It was obvious that she found it difficult to adjust to secondary school life; she was pretty young.
This little girl was lost. Her academic performance was consistently poor and she was perpetually untidy. She was still that little primary school girl who needed constant attention and supervision from her class teacher.
Maybe her parents wanted her to grow up quickly. Maybe they wanted to reap the fruits of their labour very early. Maybe…
As a teacher, I have witnessed different cases of underaged children thrown into secondary school way, too early. I have witnessed how many of these little ones struggle to adapt to the new system. I have seen how many of them lose focus and balance. Yet, I have seen a few of them regain their balance and composure. I have seen quite a lot of things.
