Promoting a balanced scheduling of activities in Nigerian schools



All over the world, students have different academic calendar depending on their country’s educational body. Students in Nigeria attend school for an average of 195 days in a year, the school year starts in September and ends in July. The typical school day is from 7:45am-3:30pm.
Giving this background, it is worthy to note that the structure of the Nigerian school calendar is sufficient for every student in Nigeria to acquire all the education they need for every academic year without adding extra, except for students who may need intervention and additional support. The Nigerian school calendar is compliant with the standard requirement for academic calendar around the world. Students in Australia attend school for 200 days in a year from 9am-3:30pm. While students in China attend school from September to mid –July and the average school day runs from 7:30am-5pm with a two hour lunch hour break. Kenya has an academic calendar that is similar to Nigeria’s and their school day is from 8am-4pm. Students in South Korea go to school twice a day, typical school day is from 8am-4pm and they return back to school  from 5pm for study sessions and other activities.
Having x-rayed the school calendar of other countries, it is obvious that Nigerian students are not going through anything peculiar. The only challenge with some schools in Nigeria is striking a balance between play and academics or being skilled at inculcating play into learning. After school services are obtainable in almost every country where both mother and father have to go to work and will not be available to pick up their wards from school until 5pm or later. The problem is not the after school classes or the holiday lessons but what is done in after school. Do we need to have an extension of the classroom during after school period? The typical Nigerian school needs to understand that play is a framework for learning. It doesn’t always have to be about learning Mathematics or other subjects. After school classes can be geared toward raising a total child. Sporting activities, music, arts, structured and free play can be the thrust of our after school programs.   
The objective of homework is to reinforce what was taught at school; therefore it need not be an overload on the child. Just some few practice questions can be given to achieve this objective. There should also be room for inquiry based learning, where students are in charge of their own learning.
The overall effect of the lack of balance in our school’s scheduling is that the students become bored and weary of learning because it’s like they are being hit on every side. Students are also not able to internalize and apply what they have learned before they are faced with another task. The outcome is that we produce students who only know the theoretical but are deficient in the practical facet. We can change this!

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