Last last, school na scam.”
A popular anthem among students often used to justify poor performance and growing academic apathy.
I’ve heard educated individuals speak down on education itself, and I understand the temptation. In a country where graduates face unemployment, underemployment, and an economy that makes progress feel out of reach, it’s easy to become disillusioned. Degrees don’t guarantee jobs, and merit doesn’t always determine success.
But frustration is not an excuse for disengagement.
If school truly isn’t your path, replace it with something else something intentional. Learn a trade. Build a skill. Start small, but start somewhere. What doesn’t make sense is remaining in a system you claim to hate while putting in minimal effort and expecting meaningful results.
Time is valuable and irrecoverable. Spending years complaining without action isn’t rebellion it’s stagnation.
There’s also a dangerous mindset hidden in that phrase: it normalizes mediocrity. When failure is laughed off and effort is mocked, growth becomes optional. And once growth becomes optional, discipline quietly disappears.
Yes, Nigeria is not an easy place to thrive.
Yes, the system is flawed.
But that doesn’t erase a key advantage: access to education however imperfect. Many people still don’t have that opportunity. Beyond certificates, education trains your mind how you think, how you analyze, how you communicate. Those are transferable skills no economy can completely devalue.
Another hard truth: school is not just about employment. It’s about exposure. It introduces you to ideas, people, and possibilities you might never encounter otherwise. The classroom may not make you rich, but it can make you aware and awareness is often the first step toward opportunity.
Then there’s discipline. Showing up. Meeting deadlines. Pushing through work you don’t enjoy. These are life skills. If you struggle with structure in school, navigating the unstructured reality outside becomes even harder.
And let’s be honest many people don’t actually hate education. They hate discomfort. They resist effort, then label the system useless when it demands consistency.
Knowledge is power not as a cliché, but as a practical truth. What you know shapes how you think, and how you think shapes what you can become. More often than not, it’s knowledge formal or informal that gets people into rooms they once thought were out of reach.
So the real issue isn’t whether school is a scam.
It’s whether you’re using what you have your time, your access, your mind to move forward.
Because the system may be flawed…
but apathy guarantees failure.