Nigerian Education: Road To Slavery By Daniel Adewusi

Nigeria is one of the countries in the world where formal
education is so important and revered that if you are not educated,
you are automatically seen as a nonentity (unless you are rich of
course).

There is a popular saying in Nigeria that “The best Legacy you
can give your child is Education” and as interesting as this quote
seems, I make bold to say that Education in Nigeria is just road to
modern day slavery and the whole Education thing that is supposed
to give freedom and independence has made more slaves than we had
in the pre-colonial era.

The current situation in Nigeria is that people graduate and are
seriously looking for jobs, then they get funny jobs that is not
even related to what they studied in school and they start editing
their CVs just so it will look like they are qualified for such
jobs and they end up settling for ridiculous pays just so they
don’t sit at home. Henceforth, from the day they resume the job,
they are actively looking for another job as the current job is
just for them to “have something doing”.

In this same country, we have seen engineering graduates working
as bank tellers, we have seen computer science graduates working as
marketers and bankers while we have loads of Banking and Finance
graduates sitting at home because some Agricultural Science
graduates have taken their supposed jobs.

The current situation in the country is such that we have over
2million graduates every year (that’s been conservative) and all
these people are all looking for jobs and this brings us to the
question “Do we have 2 million jobs created yearly??”. The answer
to the question is quite obvious. This means that very few of them
will actually get jobs. While there are over a million graduates
left, year after year we keep adding to this number and then our
pool of unemployed graduates get larger and larger every year.

What this means is that whatever job is out there is what these
people are running after and they will do anything to get it, many
will even subject themselves to insane conditions and terms to stay
in the job because they don’t want to stay unemployed. If you take
a random sample in Nigeria today and try to find out how many
people are qualified for the job they do and how many people are
truly happy/fulfilled in their jobs, the result will scare you and
this is the condition all over the country.

A quick glance through websites for job openings will show you
that there are thousands of job openings everyday and yet we have
so many people that are still jobless, will it surprise you to know
that some of these jobs are still open even after 6 months
sometime? Then you wonder what the problem really is, it’s either
the graduates we have are been trained in courses that are outdated
and they are not really relevant in today’s economy or we produce
graduates that cannot even defend what they studied. What do you
say about a computer science graduate that left school studying
Fortran, COBOL and Visual Basic? Don’t you now wonder how these can
be used to design solutions for today’s world.

The cycle in Nigeria presently is “Birth – Go to school- Get
good grades – Graduate – Get a Job – Pay bills – Die” this cycle is
the typical life of an average NIGERIAN and defines the existence
of most people in the country. Very few people have been lucky
enough to actually enjoy their jobs and enjoy life fully.

Inasmuch as education offers us options in Life and gives us a
chance to speak and stand for ourselves, it also offers an easy way
out and makes us Lazy once we achieve the certificate. Many of us
just sit around and keep applying and waiting for jobs that are
barely even there. We have been so conditioned with the cycle that
we don’t see anything else asides getting a job and working our
minds out. While some are still waiting 5 years to get a job,
somebody has started learning an art within same period and has
become an expert and has started earning big but we are still
waiting on Jobs.

Over time, the government has tried to add business studies and
entrepreneurship courses to the curriculum in both secondary
schools and universities but it has achieved very little and the
effect is so negligible. Until we realize that this is our saving
grace as a nation, then the hardship continues. Until students and
graduates start to see their certificates as an option and not a
priority, the wailing continues.

Our curriculum is completely outdated and irrelevant, we are
still studying rules and hypothesis that were formulated ages ago
and we are trying to apply them to problems of today. Students are
subjected to emotional and mental stress just to get their
certificates under extremely inconvenient conditions and when they
finally graduate, you see them celebrating all over just for them
to come out and face the actual realities.

Nigeria is a country where we look at mechanics, fashion
designers, carpenters as people who are less privileged or people
who didn’t go to school while in western world, these people are
the real professionals. That fashion designer you see and look down
on has probably done so much that he even has money to employ a
graduate in this current Nigeria.

Solutions
Government should focus seriously on technical schools right now,
polytechnics should serve their purposes of raising graduates that
are technically sound and the curriculum should be practical-based.
Just imagine someone studying fashion design in school for 3 years,
such person will not only graduate with a certificate but will also
graduate with a job right in his hands. That kind of person will
not be looking up to government for a job and will not be going
about with CVs to find jobs.

Youths should wake up to reality and start putting their hands
to work. A certificate is no longer a guarantee and as a matter of
fact it should be an option right now. There are no jobs out there
and that certificate you carry might just be the box you will be
caged in for the rest of your life.

Many of us have patience of working at different jobs for 40
years but we do not have patience to learn an art or grow a
business for 3 years. We cannot keep doing the same thing and
expect different results…… NIGERIAN Education right now is like a
failed project and we have to see it for what it is.

Daniel Adewusi