FOR AFRICA: THE DANGER OF STAGNANT ACADEMIC INSITUTIONS (WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS LONG) For me, education has never really been a questionable form for development. There is no man that can move forward without knowledge and its application. And people who are resistant to new knowledge soon fade away with time. And that is why we go to school; from primary to secondary to tertiary institutions. Nigerians are foreign to home schooling. If your child does not go to school, it is either because he is sick, or you are sick or you have financial disabilities which still give little excuse as there are near free schools abound save tertiary institutions. However, it is no longer news that thousands and thousands of students are churned out each year with little or nothing to show for their several years in the university. While the quality of the current educational system may have been high, the relevance is getting outdated or is already out-dated. It is no longer news that most practical classes are yet to be reviewed in the last ten years while little or no advancements have been made with regards to other theoretical subjects. Even technological gadgets are barely used in universities due to the lack of technical know-how of the educators. Unfortunately, the world one year ago has drastically changed and many people, companies and bodies are painfully realizing it, not to talk of ten years ago. Job requirements ten years ago are no longer same. There are now jobs whose requirements are not taught in school which is raking in massive income that many other professions may only dream of. The dilemma of the young undergraduate gets worse when he realizes that he may not have been trained up to the requirement of the society and thus would either seek more education, get underpaid or even end up without a job, the latter been the most frequent. It is not true that there are no jobs, only these days they mostly have to be created. Most companies have all their hierarchies filled with people who graduated several years ago, thus it is difficult to see such generous vacancies; however where there are , the millions of job seekers flood its gates out of which less than a tad of 1 percent get chosen, mostly based on selection rather than total merit. There still, there are some students already earning over a 100,000 naira monthly all because they have been quick to understand how to manipulate the current system. However, there is still a lack of innovation. It is not news that some years ago, companies called out that most students produced by the universities are half-baked. Soon, the world would have changed so much that graduates produced into the labour market would be close to irrelevant and would only be available for jobs that require less and less expertise. Take out job seeking, universities with no improved systems cannot produce graduates that are capable to innovate or solve new and evolving problems; thus the reason for the stagnancy in most African systems. The same set of graduates are churned out every year with no new ideas on how to move the society or their fields forward as they are no more educated that those who got it there. Thus, it is not strange that you see Africans trying to build crude helicopters when spaceships are being built outside the continent. While the world is working on making cars run driverless, we have graduates here struggling to build cars much less efficient than the out-dated Volkwagen beetle. A simple surf on the internet would reveal high school students outside the continent doing class projects that graduates here find difficult. Thus less and less innovation can be found in the current system and the universities are to blame. And in this world, you can only move forward or backward, there is no stagnancy; because to stay comfortably at a spot, you have to move forward. Think of a race where one of the runners in the fourth position decided to stay stagnant, he would never remain fourth unless the race had ended as others will overtake him. Unfortunately, the world is not only moving, nations are moving too and systems are changing. The world has moved gradually from one age to another. THE AGRICULTURE AGE followed the Stone, Ice and Iron ages! This age gave more power to people who owned lands and produced therefrom. THE INDUSTRIAL AGE gave power to production and other industrial systems. The INFORMATION AGE is powered by Technology and people with technological solutions are leading in the markets and have better growth relative to others and then comes the SHIFT AGE, as described by David Houle as that age where intellectual property would reign supreme. The SHIFT AGE I fear would be drastic to Africa especially Nigeria and a host of others where innovation is terribly low. Taking proper study, most schools still produce graduates for the industrial age in an age where technologies get obsolete in a matter of days. Read more on the differences between information age and industrial age through this link. Less and less graduates can leave school and dictate change because they are not prepared for them. And this, not poor leadership, is the root of the problems of the Nigerian system, of the African system. A system that is founded on a faulty education system and has weak educational values is bound to produce poor leaders, educators, businessmen and legislators. A legislator educated in the current system would have little or no idea what policies to pass to make the country keep up with the pace of development of the world. It’s the same system that produces governors and presidents that think distributing pepper grinders and motorcycles as tools for societal development and financial freedom. The foundation of Africa’s problems is in its schools, not its leaders. First, the people make a system, but once a system is created, it begins to create people who would find it difficult to change it because it has produced them; thus the need for improved education and exposure. You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot act outside what you know. Thus is the danger of stagnant educational institutions and it should be carefully noted as it gnaws swiftly at our existence. A continuation in this line may spell doom to our development. Our educational systems should be able to produce people who are independent in thoughts, innovative and can conveniently compete with other people in the world. And as I would always assert, education, entrepreneurship and innovation are what would drive Africa out of its dungeon, not a political revolution, not resistance. It is what saved America, it is what is saving China! HABEEB KOLADE Writer, Entrepreneur, Campus Journalist. Editor-in-Chief, Indypress Organization #EveryoneHasAStoryToTell
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 20:55:05 +0000
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