Maybe it’s called PTA at your school, or PTO, or Home and School. But chance are, once a month or so, parents and administrators meet to discuss activities, events, problems and procedures; and indeed, those meetings are boring and frustrating and annoying and filled with highly vocal people who really need to get a hobby. But you know what? Go anyway. Participation matters.

Children are never too young to learn anything. Most people always think that children are too young to learn and that children ‘don’t know anything’. On the contrary, I feel that children should be taught. Children do not know anything if you do not tell them. If you always feel that your children ‘don’t know anything’, then you are restricting yourself to communicate with your children and your children will really grow up ‘not knowing anything’.

While everyone will agree that private school education in Nigeria is not cheap, it doesn’t have to break your budget. Affording a quality private education takes some planning, and most families employ several strategies to keep the costs within reach. In this planning it is important to realize that the family bears the primary responsibility for financing a child’s education to the extent that it is able.

There should be  information on financial aid and tuition assistance for parents having problems sending their children to private schools in Nigeria.

From birth well into their teens and beyond, we can continue to provide our children with the tools to care for those in need – from the friend whose parents are divorcing to the homeless man living on the city streets to victims of unforeseen disasters. We, as parents, are the most important tool to show our children selflessness.

Youth crime harms communities, creates a culture of fear and damages the lives of some of our most vulnerable young people. Reducing youth crime and improving the youth justice system is a central part of our effort to build safer communities and to tackle the problem of social exclusion.

What causes youth crime?

Children have the right to feel loved and protected. Since children have limited capacity for reason and logic, the child’s parent, guardian or caregiver is there to provide the nurturing a child needs to grow to be a positive contributor in life and society. The caregivers are there to give their best to the child and look out for the child’s best interest.

Parenting tips can be picked up, but the act of parenting is a learned skill. Sometimes, the caregiver may be in a position that compromises their ability and responsibility to nurture their children. Perhaps the caregiver may have suffered a job loss or maybe a relationship between adults is having problems. Stresses like these can become too much to bear and the parental experience may feel overwhelming. Unfortunately the child may be in an environment or home where the caregiver is letting these factors get the better of them, thus hindering the well-being and development of the child, BUT with prevention and programs available to help fullfill the needs of both the child and caregivers, child abuse and neglect never needs to begin.

About 20 years ago, when I was in Senior Secondary School, I was often asked by elders about what I wanted to become. I remember that my answer was always, unhesitatingly, ‘Computer Engineer' (much to their surprise). Then, on one occasion, at a family function in Lagos, my uncle’s friend, who had a ‘good career’ going, told me in no uncertain terms that Computer Engineering wouldn’t do as a career.

Eighteen years hence, I’ve missed my Computer Engineering bus, and, working in the banking sector, I still ask these questions.

The importance of and preference for evaluating learning outcomes, using a wide variety of instruments and containing data from a wide variety of sources, rather than the use of one-shot and one-type examinations, have long been recognised worldwide; hence the Federal Government of Nigeria mandated, in 1982, the use of evaluations of this nature, referred to as continuous assessment, in Nigerian Schools. Several problems confronted its planning, and now its implementation. The authors of this study went out in the field to evaluate the nature and scope of activities and problems that have to do with implementing continuous assessment in Nigerian primary schools. By and large, the continuous assessment procedure is accepted in preference to the previous narrower scope of one-shot evaluation, but many problems continue to threaten the benefits derivable from using this method to evaluate primary school pupils.

What are suggestions on how these problems can be addressed?

The African dimension of modern Nigerian culture and education requires to be promoted through the use of indigenous languages, usually the mother tongues for virtually all Nigerians in the rural areas, as well as in the urban areas, both as languages of socialization and of formal education. It is necessary and in order to promote vital regional culture in multiethnic nations to develop indigenous and regional languages since this can only reinforce the values that are indispensable for the survival of the intangible but invaluable needs of the new national entities of Africa.