Twirl

Chapter 2

Monday came too quickly, Tomini thought as she walked through the school’s gate. It was 7:16 am and she was quite early for school. She played with the tip of one of her braids as she made her way to her new classroom. She greeted the teachers she saw on her way. School was quite empty. Most students did not arrive until it was almost or already eight.  There was only one girl in her class, SS3 Science. They exchanged greetings and Tomini made her way to a seat on the far left of the third row. Their class teacher might rearrange their sitting positions later, and she hoped she was not placed at the front row.

Assembly was held outside, in front of the school building. Some Prefects stood in between the rows of students, watching and cautioning the noisemakers. Others stood near the gate, waiting on latecomers and punishing them.

When it was time for the moral talk which was usually conducted by a teacher, the two health prefects, Tomini and her close friend, Esther, who was social prefect, inspected students. Boys were expected to keep their hair low and free from any style or design. Girls were not to use any form of hair extensions or accessories. Nails were to be kept short and black socks and shoes were to be worn. Students who violated these rules were told to kneel behind the gathering of students and were flogged by the teacher on duty after the assembly. Prefects were not permitted to flog students, but could instruct and punish.

Coordinating a group of adolescents proved to be difficult. They had been assigned prefects long before the summer break, around the time when the last set of seniors had started their WASSCE, West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations, the exam most Nigerians called WAEC, the name of the board that conducted the exam. Speaking of which, Saturday lessons were going to begin that week for the SS3 students, in preparation for their forthcoming external exams. Tomini thought it was too early to start the lessons. WASSCE did not start until February the following year. It was the school’s tradition to start the extra lessons the first week of resumption in September. 

The Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by National Examination Council (NECO) was not written in her school. However, students who wanted to sit for the exam usually registered with schools that accepted external students.  It usually commenced after WASSCE ended. Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was not conducted in schools. Students registered for the exam on their own and wrote it in external centres. UTME was taken in one sitting; 4 subjects written on the same day in a stretch.

The questions were objective and only 3 and a half hours was given for the examination. The Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), the board that conducted UTME had recently scraped pencil and paper exams and now Computer Based Tests were conducted. Usually, the results were out a few days after writing the exam. Popular opinion was that “JAMB” was a difficult exam; the time given for the exam too little and the questions too tough. The exam was a total of 400 marks, each subject taking 100 marks. Many struggled to score up to 200. The exceptional ones scored close to or above 300. Quite a number floated in between.

Tomini planned to apply for Food, Nutrition and Dietetics. Not many people applied for the course, so she had a good chance of getting selected. Many people stuck with the conventional, well-known courses like Medicine, Law, Engineering, Computer science and the likes. Moreover, since she was applying to a private university, it made it even easier to get admitted for her course of choice. Lesser people applied to private universities, and a very tiny proportion of that percentage applied for Food, Nutrition and Dietetics.

Time seemed to crawl through the school hours. Tomini had chemistry, math, biology, civic education and Food and Nutrition. School closed at the normal time of 4 pm. Some schools closed earlier during the first week of resumption but not hers. Her school was very serious; most of their activities were restricted to academic related ones. You could say it was a boring, old-fashioned school. The school was quite rigid. The only fun thing they did in school was sports, which was on Fridays. Clubs were not all that fun, but they were the only other activity that was close to fun. Even end of the year parties, which were normal for schools to hold, were not held in hers. Christmas carols and valedictory services were the only events that took place in her school.