Introduction
In our last publication, we discussed ‘Responsible Management as a solution to youth unemployment and restiveness in Nigeria’. Today we shall X-ray another solution- quality education.
Education for Success
Education generically means to breed, to rear, or to bring up. It is imparting knowledge, ideas, skills, judgment, and values for sustainable national development and revival. There exists a sure nexus between national success and achievements in education. Education is thus the best legacy a country can give its citizens; Igbuzor (2006) labeled education a human right that should be accorded to all human beings solely because of their being human.
Informal and Formal Education
Education can be formal or informal. Formal Education involves a structured curriculum and way of teaching while Informal Education is never organized; it is spontaneous with no formal curriculum, etc. Long before European colonialists arrived, our children were taught their cultures, social activities, survival skills, and work. Most of these were imparted informally and had a great impact on the lives of our people. Some of us were taught the principle of savings by our parents even before we got to learn about the Classical and Keynesian theories of savings; that was informal education. Some of the informal investment, risk, and return skills we received from our parents are probably still influencing our investment decisions even though we later learned about Harry Markowitz’s postulation on portfolio diversification! Again, that is the power of informal education.
The Formal 6-3-3-4 System
Since its birth in 1914, Nigeria has witnessed a series of formal educational systems that didn’t meet its needs, interests, and aspirations. The present 6-3-3-4 was designed and introduced in 1988 to inject practical functionality into our graduates by empowering and activating their heads, hearts, and hands (the 3Hs of education). Good as the model was, it is instructive to note that the interests of most people have shifted from the acquisition of technical competence to acquiring paper qualifications, thereby creating dangerous skill gaps and critical manpower shortages.
Nitisha’s Five Factors
The point is that many youths are idle not because they are not schooled, they do not have the required skills to either fit into available jobs or to create jobs. Nitisha (2015) wrote an article on the following five factors that affect the economic growth of a country:
• Human Resources
• Natural Resources
• Capital Formation
• Technological Development and
• Social – political factors.
The first and the most important element in national development is the quality and quantity of the available human resources. How do we determine the quality and quantity of available human resources? They are dependent on available skills, creative abilities, training, and education. If the human resources of a country are educated, skilled, and trained through innovative programmes and curricula, then the output would be of high quality.
Our Present Curricula
Curriculum development is the step-by-step process that can be used to create positive improvements in courses offered by a school, college, or university.
• What is the effectiveness of the current Nigerian school curricula?
• Can they breed graduates that will compete favorably with their peers in Japan, Germany, Canada, etc?
• Are our school curricula subject-centered, learners’-centered, or problem-centered? A problem-centered curriculum model helps students engage in authentic learning because they’re exposed to real-life issues and skills, which are transferable to the real world.
• Again, are our school curricula designed to teach students how to look at a problem and formulate its solution? Are we teaching our students the latest developments in the information technology world? It is important that as the world continues to evolve, discoveries have to be introduced into the education curricula. Innovative teaching techniques and strategies (such as active learning or blended learning) should constantly be devised to improve the student learning experience.
• What is the quality of our researches, researchers, and research institutes?
• The present regular academic system certifies our youths for unemployment and job- begging. They bag degrees and go about skill-less, begging for jobs. The government needs to know that they cannot continue to pay lip service to the development of education in the country. Environmentally non- compliant education is worthless and can fuel insecurity.
A country that refuses to invest in research or fund education will always be a laggard innovatively and technologically. The result is what we have in our hands – a large number of certificated and certified youths that are unemployable and uncreative. They invest their resources in praying against imaginary enemies and in ‘Yahoo, Yahoo’ activities.
Revamping Education
• After Primary education, students should be channeled into different higher schools and areas of study according to their abilities and interests. Those who chose technical, technological, and vocational studies should be sent to properly equipped and staffed institutions and motivated to complete their studies through technical bursaries and grants.
• Every non-technical/technological graduate should also be able to learn a skill/trade in addition to their paper qualifications. I must commend the National Youth Service Corps Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Department (SAED). In the next write-up, I will talk about the Igbo strategy of ‘Recruit, Train and Release’ (RTR) in the battle against youth unemployment and restiveness.
• The government needs to fund and enhance technical and vocational education. Why should they degrade specialized and entrepreneurship-friendly institutions into conventional institutions? Why should NBTE or the NUC allow technical institutions to run administrative courses? In 2019, China converted 600 universities to polytechnics to increase their technical, job creation capacity. Nigeria almost at the same time planned to convert polytechnics to universities to graduate job seekers with half-baked theoretical administrative capacities. What will they administer in a job–deficient environment?
• We need to rejig our curricula if we want graduates who will be creative job creators and not half-baked, eternal job seekers.
To be continued next week.
Sunday Ade Bello (SAB) is a multi-talented and analytically inspired management trainer, writer, and examiner. He is the CEO of WorkLife Training Professionals, Lagos.
