SIR: I got admitted into the university with my dream high and lofty as I was lucky to be offered Computer Science. With so much enthusiasm, I was looking forward to getting my hands filled with IT skills that were in demand all over the world through my course modules. I never knew that I would be stuck with only theories and notes throughout the course of “Computer Science Degree”.
In the 21st century, it was PASCAL and some other “dead” programming languages that were taught in class with a blue moon practical class. It was frustrating, painful and absurd; as we were in step one while other developing and developed countries were in step 200.
To be candid, the state of our curriculum has rendered many of us subpar in comparison to our counterparts in developing and developed nations.
Education was to equip us with the right, current and practical knowledge not with out-dated knowledge. We paid for this education, via the sweat and sleepless night of our underpaid or unpaid parents, yet we were denied the right knowledge and skills that would position us as top talent in the IT world and other fields of study.
Many of us sold bread, sachet water on the streets just to pay for our education, which we believed would make us better. It is unfair if we are still unemployable after graduation due to lack of hot skills in demand in the business world as we were never equipped with in school.
We were told to produce a project as requirement for graduation with emphasis on its contribution to the academic body. We thought by working on projects like: Development of a record keeping system or Design and Implementation of student voting system, this will pave the way for us in the corporate world. We never knew what we did and many are still doing is obsolete and has no significance to the corporate world.
Without mincing words, there is a great gap between the acceptable in the education space and the “in demand” solutions of the corporate world.
Ordinarily, upon graduation students are supposed to hit the corporate world with their solutions and with right funding, become employer of labour if they chose to be, not with obsolete developed project work that many cannot even remember upon graduation.
After years upon years to attain a degree certificate in Nigeria – following the 6-6-4 education system, we never knew that to succeed again we have to start another school in the corporate world called “Internship” – where many employers don’t mind paying graduates N20, 000 per month. They say – you know you don’t have any skills, we will train you.
Without doubt, many young Nigerians dream has been thwarted by the result of poor academic curriculum, which in turn has rendered them unemployable. Most grow up with beautiful career dreams but it is painful to see that upon graduation many have become the opposite of what their dreams.
It is very painful and if our education system were to stay the train, I’m afraid we will never be the giant.
To get Nigeria working, let there be a total revamp of our education curriculum all over tertiary institutions, to make it match that of developed countries with readily available infrastructure for practical classes and well knowledgeable lecturers to teach and also who knows what they are teaching. Let industry stakeholders (those who have deep knowledge on the present and future skills that will be in demand – the future jobs) be involved in the new curriculum development.
Let students be mandated to start developing industry specific or business world solutions rather than ordinary academic fulfilment projects. Let industry stakeholders and Federal Parastatals be invited for final year project defence to pick brilliant solutions for mentoring and funding for growth and launch.
Let all faculties/departments in the tertiary institution have a taste of Industrial Training/SIWES experience – not just science students alone. This will help to give every students a feel of working experience upon graduation and alleviate the no work experience, no job frustration.
Let us save the future of Nigeria. Let us make our education system right, so frustrated graduates will not turn to the most trending decision among Nigerians now: run away to other countries to seek greener pasture. In so doing, we are losing our best brains with potentials to other nations.
Let us get Nigeria working. Sincerely, I cannot wait.
- Oluwajuwon Obaniyi, joobaniyijuwon@gmail.com
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