– My mother and her pupils.
Teaching was a respected profession in Ekiti in those times. Her story provides a window into the content and structure of education at that time, on the opportunities available for girls, and of the determination of a rural area to educate its young, in spite of its little financial resources.
Western education was highly valued in Ekiti for many decades. Being agrarian, Ekiti was, and still is, much less prosperous than coastal Yoruba land, with abundant opportunities for trade. The Ekitis, however, excelled in producing highly educated children, many of who dominated the Nigerian professoriate for a long time. They are also in other professions. The passion for Western education in this sub-region became a part of its identity, so much so that intellectualism is now culturally codified into what it means to be an Ekiti. In fact, the motto of the state is “Fountain of Knowledge,” a reference to its accomplishments in Western education.
It is, however, a gendered story. The overwhelming majority of Ekiti professors and other professionals are male. This came out of the history of giving preference to male education for a long time, because educating girls was not considered a desirable goal. Any Ekiti girl who got educated in the early part of the twentieth century must have come from a very enlightened family willing to assume the financial burden for her education. Most people were very poor and could not afford the school fees. The thinking was, if you educate a girl, she would take the advantages to her husband’s family and would not be of much use to her father. To rebut this way of thinking back then, the Ghanaian scholar, Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir-Aggrey, (1875-1927) famously said, “you educate a man, you educate an individual, you educate a woman, you educate a family, a nation.” For an agrarian region, Western education deprived parents of the much-needed labour of children on their farms, which made the Ekiti education story remarkable for the heavy financial investments parents made in their children’s education.
Born in 1932, my mother joined her ancestors in 2014. At my prodding over the years, she wrote her memoirs about her school days before she died. She was one of the earliest educated women in her town of Igede-Ekiti. She earned the prestigious teacher certification of that generation, Standard VI, and became a teacher for many years before she got married. Teaching was a respected profession in Ekiti in those times. Her story provides a window into the content and structure of education at that time, on the opportunities available for girls, and of the determination of a rural area to educate its young, in spite of its little financial resources.
My mother, Roseline Jaiyeola Fatoye titled her memoirs, “My Life History As a School Girl In the Olden Days.” Here is an edited version:
“I started schooling at the age of six in 1938 in Infant, which is now called Primary School. In the olden days, we started our education with three Yoruba text books. The first one was Alakobere, from where we were taught Yoruba alphabet, a, b, d, which has twenty-seven letters. That was the beginning of learning Yoruba language. By that time, the school was yearly, and not sessions as it is now. The school year started in January and ended in December; and we had quarterly break, which we called holidays. We were also taught Yoruba numbering from one to hundred in the first year. This was called Isiro/Arithmetic – counting, simple sums, addition, minus, multiplication. All these were taught in Yoruba and not in English. Other subjects we were taught were ‘Apeko’, dictation; ‘Awoko’, writing; ‘Itan siso’, story telling by learning Yoruba poems, and simple native songs and plays, like “Talo wa ninu ogba mi”, “Talo ga ju logba”, “Gbadi, gbadi”, and so on. All these native games made children happy and let us exercise our bodies. We were taught religious stories and memory verses from the Bible, which was one of my interesting subjects as a beginner. It was very easy for me to memorise Bible passages like Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer – Baba wa ti n be lorun. At the end of Alakobere, we took promotion examinations. A child who did well was promoted to the next class. We were promoted by merit in the olden days.
“To solve the problem of attending Standard VI, somebody advised my mother to go and talk to the Onigede on the throne at that time, Oba Adefolaju. He was a retired Catechist under Methodist denomination before he became a king, and people like Pastors or Reverend were respected in those days. So, my mother went to the palace and laid her problem before him.”
“In the second year, we started to read “Ijapa” in our text book. I thank God I did well in my promotion examination. Though I was very young, I did much better than the older people in our class. My teacher liked me because I was doing very well in spite of my age. In the second year, we learned how to read and write Yoruba properly. They didn’t teach us English like nowadays. After the second year, we sat for our promotion examination to class three. The children who did well were promoted to class three – Iwe Keta. You had to score at least sixty per cent before you can be promoted. After Iwe Keta, we were qualified to be proper Yoruba speakers and writers, and in using proverbs. It was after these three years we were promoted to Standard One, where we were taught simple English, and the alphabet, a, b, c. Our textbook was English Reader One, where we learned how to read simple English stories, poems and the alphabet. One of the problems we had in the olden days was paying school fees.
“Our parents experienced a lot of hardship before they could pay our school fees. Some children withdrew from school because their parents could not pay the fees. I am grateful to my mother and my sisters for sending me to school; being that I am the last born of our mother. My sisters loved me and cooperated with my mother to pay the school fees. After I was promoted to Standard One, I could not go to school for a quarter because of an injury on my leg. This made me lose class work, and at the end of the year, I didn’t do well in my promotion examinations, so I repeated the class. This made me and my sisters very unhappy, but our headmaster loved me and pleaded with my parents that they should not be annoyed with me, that my illness caused it. When I repeated the second year, I covered what I had lost. I started Standard One in Baptist School, Igede-Ekiti and went to school there till I reached Standard IV, which was the last class in the school. It did not go up to Standard VI.
“In the olden days, all schools were under different denominations like Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Apostolic, and so on. Each mission had its pupils. Baptist pupils could not go to Catholic school unless their parents paid a levy. This meant a child could not change schools to another denomination unless the parents were members. Our school in Igede went only to Standard IV so our parents had to find schools for us to study for Standard V and VI. My sister was with her husband in Osogbo, and there was a Baptist school there, so she sent for me, since she was a Baptist member. It was in Osogbo I studied for Standard V but the school did not have Standard VI, and my sister’s husband was transferred to Lagos after that year. He was a Manager with U.A.C. My sister couldn’t take me to Lagos, so she sent me back home to Igede to my mother, where to study for Standard VI became a problem because the school in Igede still did not have Standard VI. Apart from the levy, starting at another denomination was not easy. Children did not often do well because of the differences in doctrine. For example, changing to a Catholic school meant memorising a lot of which was not easy. If a child failed in Religion, he failed all subjects.
“To solve the problem of attending Standard VI, somebody advised my mother to go and talk to the Onigede on the throne at that time, Oba Adefolaju. He was a retired Catechist under Methodist denomination before he became a king, and people like Pastors or Reverend were respected in those days. So, my mother went to the palace and laid her problem before him. My mother was a respected woman and when he saw her, he gave her the respect and listened to her problem. When he heard it was about the education of her child, he was happy to assist her. He told her to come back with me and also bring my result. As young as I was by the time, my result was very good with my transfer certificate; he was impressed and promised to write a letter recommending me to the school where he retired as a Headmaster in Ifaki Methodist School. He had a boy in the school that was my age group. His name was Olu. Both of us were very young. The only problem we had was that we had to trek from Ifaki to Igede every fortnight to collect our food stuff from our families. All the roads were bush paths in those days, and we walked from morning till evening to get home. This was where my suffering started, because I had never trekked such a long distance before. There were some students in our town who had been attending the school before me, but they were much older than me. The names of our older classmates from Igede are Masters James Fatoye, Michael Ogunmodede, and Sister Ogunkuade. They had been attending the school because their parents were members of the Methodist Church. I joined them one Sunday evening to trek to Ifaki, to start school.
“On Monday morning, I was led to the Headmaster’s office to deliver my letter of recommendation and my result. The Headmaster was impressed by my result. He called his office clerk to enroll me in Standard VI. I was taken to my class, where I met my class teacher, Mr. Ogundipe, a native of Igbesa near Lagos. Our Headmaster was an elderly man who had grown children. The name of our Headmaster was Mr. Onamade from Ijebu area. Our Assistant Headmaster and Agric. Master was Mr. Okeya from Emure-Ekiti. As a new student who had never attended the school, I worked hard at my studies. Religious knowledge was very important in all mission schools. It was a compulsory subject that a child must not fail. As I started to follow their doctrine, we had catechism passages to memorise. Memorisation was easy for me. I was doing well in religion and in my other classes. My teachers liked me. The school was like college. It was one of the best schools in Ekiti, which the government approved to have Standard VI. If you passed Standard VI in the olden days, you could work in any office. We had weekly tests and the results were put on the wall on every class by the teachers. Every Friday, the whole school would assemble to see the results, and those who failed would be punished. I was afraid of this punishment so I worked hard at my studies. Any visitor or parents who visited saw the names of the children who did well and those who failed. This encouraged pupils to work hard so as not to be disgraced. They used to flog those who failed. Some of my talents when I was young was memorising Bible passages and notes giving to us in class. I also liked singing. I was a member of the choir. During our time, the church had no organ, so we sang the different parts, alto, tenor, bass, etc. My part was tenor. We sang so well during one harvest season that we were invited by other towns to sing.
“I applied to teach after I passed my Standard VI examinations. I was respected in our town. A girl who passed Standard VI in the olden days was looked at like the university graduate of today. It was not common for girls to be sent to school. I was the first girl to pass Standard VI in my quarter at Ilogbo Street, Igede.”
“After our weekly result was released on Friday afternoon, children had to trek to their different villages to bring food stuff or school fees from their families. Children came from villages like Aaye, Ifisin, and Igbole, but our village, Igede, was farther than others. At times, some of the older boys would go and give their labour on farms on Saturdays to get money or yams to eat. We had two older boys from Igede, and myself and Sister Janet Ogunkua were the girls. She was a lady by the time. Whenever the boys did not go home on the weekend, she and I would go alone. One weekend, it rained heavily and we were by ourselves. We had to cross a big river which had gotten bigger because of the rain. We couldn’t pass through. Sister Janet looked for a long stick to test how deep the river was in certain places. It was getting dark. When she found a place where we could cross safely, she came back for me and put me on her back until we got to the main road, and then we trekked to Igede. We got there at night and the town was asleep. The Sister took me to my house and woke my mother up to hand me over to her. On another journey when we were by ourselves in the bush, we saw Ogun priests celebrating Ogun festival. The masquerades were crying inside the bush; we were afraid, though they didn’t beat us or do anything to us as we passed by them. There was an occasion when the two of us got to a village called Ifisin, and they were having their festival. Ahead of us on the bush path, we saw onimoles wearing white cloth with iye oode (parrot’s feathers) on their heads. Sister Janet took my hand and we ran back in the direction we were coming from. We hid in the bush until they passed. We were afraid but they didn’t bother us. We suffered a lot to get educated in the olden days. After our long journey home carrying food stuff on our heads for school, I would develop pains in my legs. They called it “arindun” in our dialect because we had walked a long distance. Sometimes, if the boys travelled with us, they might help carry our loads. Master Ogunmodede used to help me to carry my load when I was tired. The other boy, the prince, did not carry any load. It was the “oloris”, the junior wives of Kabiyesi, who carried his food stuff. Still we both had the same leg pains on Monday morning, and we couldn’t walk very well. Apart from students from Igede, there were students from other villages, such as Auntie Rachel Daramola and Auntie Felicia Ogundumila from Aye, with some boys. A young boy of my age named David Oni was from Orin. All these villages were not far from Ifaki. We were twenty five in the class. I was the youngest among the four girls. I was living with a mother in Ifaki, who took care of me like my mother. The wife of her son was the first daughter of Kabiyesi Adefolaju, the king of my town, so this mother liked students from Igede.
“One evening, our Headmaster, Mr. Onamade; his assistant, Mr. Okeya; and my class teacher, Mr. Okeya came to visit unexpectedly. I went to hide, thinking they had come to visit the mother I was living with. But they asked for me. The mother called out for me but I hid behind a door because I was afraid to face them. I didn’t know what I did that the masters of the school should come to see me. I finally came out and they said the purpose of their visit was to ask about how a young person with a small stature managed to get to Standard VI. I didn’t give any answer because I submitted my promotion result and transfer certificate to them before I was enrolled. They were only joking but I did not have a rest of mind until they left. They all liked me. When I started schooling, nobody wrote down dates of birth, because most families were illiterate. A child could only start school when his or her arm could bend across the head and touch the ear. A child was disqualified from starting if he could not do this.
“Concerning our subjects, our first class was Religious Knowledge, then we went out for physical exercise. We studied Agriculture, too. The boys went to the farm to do farm work and the girls stayed in school learning simple sewing work. Older girls learned how to weave native cloth. Weavers were brought from town to teach the girls. During the time of harvest, the Agric Master invited people from outside to buy our farm crops such as maize, rice, groundnuts and yams. There were palm trees in our school farm, and when the palm trees got seeds, “eyin” in Yoruba, the boys made palm oil. The older girls harvested rice and young boys harvested groundnuts. All these crops were sold, and the money was kept in the school purse. They gave the children part of the crops like “epa”, groundnuts, and fresh maize. At the end of the year, teachers organised an end-of-the-year party, and gave us a feast. All these important subjects are not taught nowadays.
“Whenever we were asked to write on the work we wanted to do after passing our Standard VI examination, I always said I wanted to be a nurse. The form for nursing school came out and I was very happy but to my disappointment, I was disqualified because of my age. I was too young. Three older girls from our school went for the examination at Guilde’s Hospital in Ilesa. When they got back with the examination papers, it was only three papers, English, Mathematics, and General Paper, I got to see the questions. The questions were picked from our Standard VI exam questions. I was about to cry because I understood the questions very well. When our Standard VI result came out, I did very well, and my certificate was sent to our Assistant Headmaster, Pa Okeya. At the end of the school year, our Headmaster Pa Onamade was transferred to his area at Ijebu and our class teacher Mr. Ogundipe was transferred to the Lagos area.
“I applied to teach after I passed my Standard VI examinations. I was respected in our town. A girl who passed Standard VI in the olden days was looked at like the university graduate of today. It was not common for girls to be sent to school. I was the first girl to pass Standard VI in my quarter at Ilogbo Street, Igede.”
To be continued.
Bunmi Fatoye-Matory was educated at the Universities of Ife and Ibadan, and Harvard University. She lives with her family in Durham, North Carolina. She is a writer and culture advocate. Email: bunmimatory@yahoo.com
