Nigeria’s system of education: A Hatchery of job seekers or providers?

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By Salisu Uba kofarwambai

Functional education is the key to solving most of the joblessness and unemployment predicament Nigerians are facing today. The philosophy of education matters a lot. The kind of philosophy under which a particular curriculum is operating determines the quality of graduates a particular system of education breeds.

The idealism philosophy under which Nigeria’s system of education operates helps grossly why our graduates oftentimes ended up chasing shadows, seeking for jobs when in reality there’s none. The idealism philosophy emphasizes and dwells so much on book knowledge. The students are made to jampack and cram all the knowledge and ideas in their heads, but practising the knowledge is completely zero. In other words, the idealism thrives in theoretical aspects. And this British model has since been abandoned by many countries of the world, as it has no successful ends and doesn’t suit 21st century challenges.

However, smarter countries like China, Germany, Japan that adopted pragmatic philosophy of education in their curriculum are getting it right when it comes to employment issues. Most of their graduates are fully equipped with certain skills needed for handling jobs effectively and efficiently. Even before graduation their students are already into temporary jobs.

The functional education practiced in such countries had made their graduates vibrant job-providers instead of perpetual job-seekers as we see here in Nigeria.

It is a mammoth challenge for our education policy formulators in this regards to do the needful, help us migrate from idealism to pragmatism as a system where students will have practical skills or functional education that will enable them to establish their own businesses owing to the skills they acquire not just memorizing books and blowing grammar all over.

The situations where a professor of mechanical engineering could not repair simple technical fault on his car until he refers it to local technician, you know there’s huge challenge with such system of education.

I think these entrepreneurial studies and industrial training introduced by our institutions of learning are equally astute and sagacious towards achieving the desired goal. But they’re not close to where we’re aiming at. We must to change the philosophy in its entirety first to have enough roadmap on ground.

The sooner we migrate the better for us.

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