If the media are to be believed, the schools are in need of traditional education, because the students are running riot! It seems that is why many British-Caribbean parents are choosing to send thier children back to The West Indies for a more traditional education (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/educa...67513.stm). There have been programmes recenly on TV which demonstate that most modern pupils would fail a traditional examination, which perhaps further proves how acadmic standard have been allowed to erode.

Perhaps it's a good idea to educate your children abroad to maintain standards. This practice was particularly popular with African parents in the 1970s, who wanted to maintain traditional standards in education, a sense of identity and perhaps, to compensate for what the curriculum did not provide. But if most communities are benefitting from the current system of education without having to leave the country, wouldn't a different approach be suitable?

I say this because of what happened to someone I once knew called Graham, living in a housing cooperative in East London. His parents took him to Nigeria in the 70s to give him a more "rounded education", an education which included learning something about his cultural background. He told me about being torn from his friends and lifestyle and being taken to a place he could not even imagine. After arriving in Nigeria, he was taken to relations, with his parent constantly being asked to send money and was constanly being parcelled from one relation to the next. He was annually being taken into town to take photographs to be send to his parents along with the usual letter to send more money which he also had to sign.

After spending 5 years in Nigeria, he came back to England, only to find that his parents had divorced and his father was nowhere to be seen. His mother had taken with another partner whom he hadn't gotten along with. His name was then changed from Shola to Graham, and as he continued with his education, he made various attempts to trackdown his biological father all without success. He eventually moved in with his girlfriend and started a family. However before long, the relationship deteriorated and he found himself without a place to live; and that is why he was living in a Housing Coop.. Because his girfriend had moved away, he had no access to his children and because of the acrimonious split between his parents, all his childhood photographs, photographs taken before he went abroad, were misplaced. The only photos he had were the ones that were taken whilst he was living in Nigeria. He eventally had a nervous breakdown and his current whereabouts are unknown.

Many of his friends said to him that many of the things he was experiencing was due to the last of stability in his life.