It is amazing how many graduations, no scratch that, how many times children would have worn the academic dress/graduation gown by the time they are in their first year in the university. According to Wikipedia, Academic dress is a traditional form of clothing for academic settings, primarily tertiary (and sometimes secondary) education, worn mainly by those that have been admitted to a university degree (or similar) or hold a status that entitles them to assume them (e.g., undergraduate students at certain old universities).
Most children by the age of 5, they already wore the ‘prestigious’ gown twice! Reading it now sounds shocking? Well, that is the trend these days. Schools will have the children in Kg2 graduate to Nursery1. Then when they get to Nursery2, they wear the gown again in recognition of their graduation to Basic/primary 1. (i am getting confused already). The third time wearing the gown is graduating from basic/primary 5/6 (do we even have 6 again?) out of the primary school to enter into the secondary school. Phew! Now, after the final class in the secondary school, there is a graduation ceremony where the gown is again worn to signify conclusion of the secondary school. Of course we already know it will be worn at the matriculation and graduation ceremony of tertiary institutions.
I was of the opinion that this gown is supposed to be a prestigious one to be looked forward to by students. Something like, ‘I can’t wait to make good grades so that I can also wear that prestigious graduation gown’. You know? However, it may seem that there is no longer any big deal about this gown as even toddlers wear them. It has lost the dignity attached to it.
I spoke to a few school owners and while trying to justify this weird act of letting children who are not yet in secondary schools wear this gown, they said ‘the movement from kg to nursery is a stage migration and should be celebrated.’ Well, i am not arguing and not saying it should not be celebrated. All i am saying is why remove the dignity from the graduation gown? Could there just not be a ‘graduation’ party or end of year party or any name that it needs to be called without the gown? One proprietor however, argued that they only do from primary 6 and that is because it is the trend and if they do not do it, parents will not be happy as other schools are doing same. It is then possible that maybe we have some proprietors who do not agree to this but only go ahead to do it to follow trend. It is also another source to rip parents off extra cash. Common! A child is graduating from nursery to basic1 and is asked to pay as much as N20, 000. The average however is N5000. This in my opinion is also unnecessarily much.
Am I complaining because i am a parent or because it sounds absolutely silly to me. Maybe both.
