What makes a good student – School or the individual?

An old adage says ‘Knowledge is power’ and we acquire knowledge through education because it is a stepping-stone to success. Being educated will require that we go to school, but then what makes a good student – the school or individual? LifeXtra takes a look.

Wikipedia defines a school “as an institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students (or pupils) under the direction of teachers.” It added that most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools.

A student (or pupil) is someone who attends an educational institution. In its other use, student is used for anyone who is studying to enter a particular profession. We all, at some point in our lives, were students because we went to school and today, children still go to school. Some become dropouts along the way while others proceeded until they become successful.  The question now is how did the successful ones make it? Was it their school or a result of their personal effort?

This thought-provoking question made LifeXtra seek for answers and we got very intriguing responses.

Felicia Lubo, an Abuja-based businesswoman, thinks it’s the school. She said, “For me, I’d say it’s the school because it is what goes into a child that makes him/her a good student. If a child has no access to good education, but has the willingness to learn, there’ll be nothing to learn.”

Concurring with Lubo, Sylvia Okopi, an Abuja-based lawyer in her late 20s said a good school can turn around any student no matter how bad he/she is. “Remember the Nigerian man with the smartest family in the UK? He said anybody, no matter how bad, can be changed given the right condition,” she concluded.

Also speaking to LifeXtra, Ayeesha Shallangwa Satti, a mother of one, is also of the opinion that it’s the school that makes the student good. She said, “An individual who goes from a poor primary school to the best secondary school or university is unlikely to excel. So school makes the individual who he is.”

“The school changes/reforms an individual. In school, you don’t only learn academics, you also learn morals, etiquette and many more. An illiterate can never be a great individual. Education is paramount to the making of an individual.”

Odu Juliana, who’s in her mid-20s, told LifeXtra that it was difficult to be on one side in the argument. “In a class where we have both intelligent and dull students, what can we say about that? Is it that the school is not giving its best or is the school being selective (when there are dull ones who are not getting it right)?”

“To me, they both play important roles but the student has more to play because in as much as the school is helping, the student needs to help himself as he’s the one that would decide whether he would come out with good grades or not, ” she concluded.