I have a neighbor who sent her young child to study elementary school in America while she and her husband remain in Nigeria. Many parents do this at different stages, some at high school, others at the undergraduate level.
Most of us tend to forget education is not all about academics. Educating a child includes learning about cultures, ways of life, behavioral patterns, and etiquettes. Sending your children abroad at tender ages while you do not live with them is not different from a long-distance relationship between a husband and wife. You are extremely lucky if you can sustain the relationship afterwards.
Weighing Financial and Emotional Implications
A friend came into my house about 4 years ago, bringing her 16-year-old daughter for my advice. She had gotten an admission to study Engineering in a Canadian university as an undergraduate. The two of them sat down while I asked basic questions about her dad’s finances. He told me how he was going to sell his only land to raise the tuition.
I asked him what he would sell the following year. He was speechless. I asked if he was going to abandon a 16-year-old girl in a foreign land without being able to check on her regularly or bring her back home during holidays. He couldn’t respond.
I turned to the young lady and gently advised her not to put her parents under undue pressure. I told her to take the option of going into a university in Nigeria and pursue a master’s program abroad afterward. She saw reasons, agreed with me, and enrolled in a Nigerian private university.
A few days ago, the father called me with excitement. The daughter had been given a student visa to study for a master’s degree in the most prestigious Engineering school in Canada. What has she really lost? Nothing. She had the opportunity to develop well in her own environment before launching into a foreign land under her parents’ tutelage.
Parental Advice: Patience and Perspective Matter
My candid advice to younger parents: please, do not be in a hurry to push your children out. Education is not only about academics. Parenting involves helping a child become a total person. It is not to your advantage when your children are too far away during their formative years. You risk losing relationships with them, rendering all financial investments ineffective.
Home or abroad, a child who is meant to succeed will succeed. Opportunities abroad do exist, but success is never automatic—it is survival of the fittest out there. Nigerian parents, please stop putting yourself under undue financial pressure in a rat race to send your children abroad, especially at tender ages.
How about the risk of losing out completely when parents grow old, as the children are alienated from a home environment they aren’t familiar with? Another topic for another day.
May knowledge and wisdom not be far from us.
Femi Akinwumi
Professor, Educational Management, University of Ibadan
Chairman, Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board (EK-SUBEB)
