Engaging Students in Positive ways this Joliday

By Anthony ororho

The world is getting ready to celebrate Christmas and, many a parent has gone out of his or her way to burrow money to take his family on vacation, or to purchase things that the family would not need after January 2, 2020. For the sake of this treatise, the reader should permit the writer to refer to this First Term holiday period, as a Joliday.

As a parent, what plans have you drawn up for your children who are still of school age?

First, let us look at a skill acquisition programme like auto mechanics. If you send your child to be apprentice to an auto mechanic this Joliday, you may be pleasantly surprised at the result you will get before school resumes in January. The child may be able to change the spark plug, battery, fuel filter or injector of your car before long. And you will enjoy the luxury of home servicing for your car, at no cost.

Second, a child that goes to acquire some skill in electrical electronics, may become the maintenance officer of your home before you realise it. That means, your television, home theatre, and wiring jobs will go for free, and, you are sure of getting the right quality spare parts, since the repair man is Junior.

Let us look at the menace of peer pressure on youths of today. They are coaxed into experimenting with sex by their peers. Oftentimes, parents only get to know about it when their daughter comes home with an unwanted pregnancy. More than half the time, young persons become drug addicts due to peer pressure. It is very common to see Secondary School girls smoking “shisha” at bars and night clubs of Nigerian cities.

Some of their mates are already hooked on marijuana, Cocaine, Tramadol, Codein and other highly addictive substances. When they get to the university, they join cult groups, just to belong.

If a stitch in time, must save nine, we must start to plan for our children’s future, by asking them what vocational skills they would like to acquire. When we guide them to make right choices, we will easily find sleep at night, and, of course, sleep with both eyes closed.

It is an established fact that, many, if not all the developed nations today were build on a foundation laid on vocational education. Not everyone likes to become a doctor or lawyer. We must remember that the three domains of learning (Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor) domains of learning must be fully developed, to produce a well-rounded, functional citizen.

Therefore, parents should pay more than the usual attention to what their children are consuming mentally, by watching the company the keep, and, guiding them through the stormy waters of life.

This writer will once more, call for the return to the 6-3-3-4 system of education because, it makes room wide enough to accommodate vocational education. This programme should be pursued with a collective sense of purpose until we achieve the desired result at home and at school.