Why do we love certificates so much in Nigeria? Is it because without it one cannot be gainfully employed? Is it because with a “good” one you can climb to the apex of your chosen career? Or is it simply a thing of pride to line up a number of acronyms after your name? Simply put, we are obsessed with certificates. Does that then mean that certificates in themselves are bad? Absolutely not; they’re as relevant as they’ll always be. The missing link – I believe – is the correlation between certificates and knowledge.
We have no fewer than 250 varsities in the country, yet we struggle to even have one in the first 2,000 universities in world rankings. This speaks volume. A lot of students that apply for admission to our varsities do not have the end result of their quest in mind because there are no rigorous regime structures in place to effectively test their capabilities.
In addition to our admission policies, why can’t we put a system in place where potential undergraduates are made to provide detailed resumes, statement of objective of study and their understanding of our society and its complex nature? If we do this – I believe – we may start grooming a new generation of graduates who would turn out to be innovators, world changers, entrepreneurs, billionaires, and solvers of complex issues, among a host of benefits.
As the world shrinks due to globalisation, it’s a known fact that new and complex challenges are emerging rapidly; these challenges need newer and sometimes radical tools to help address them. Most people agree that education, especially at the tertiary level, plays a fundamental part in addressing complex present day challenges. For us to address a critical challenge like the shrinking labour market and the rapid production of graduates annually, we have to explore ways of adding knowledge to the quest for certificates.
For those who have been opportune to sit in job interview panels, one recurring decimal is the gulf between certificates presented and applicants. How, for instance, do you reconcile a first class or second class upper degree certificate with an individual that can hardly express himself, either written or orally? Our tertiary education system – more than ever – has an onerous task of looking beyond the mere award of certificates to ensuring it benefits individuals and the larger society.
I find it strange that some undergraduates go through higher education for four, five and sometimes six years without having inkling about where the degree they are acquiring will lead them after school other than the porous hope that they will get some job and start a career somewhere.
Without doubt, education is one of the major arbiters of socialisation but when it is reduced to mere ability to obtain a certificate by fair or foul means; it becomes a tool for underdevelopment and retrogradation, sometimes on scales hardly imagined. Our leadership crises are a pointer to this.
For qualitative education to be achieved and sustained, critical value must be placed on it so that those who receive it can see beyond its “putting food on the table” and refocus on the imperative to apply its gains to the needs of society. In other words, education – especially at the university level – needs to be properly valued and repositioned.
A look at some of the curricula in our tertiary education system seem to suggest that we are gradually being left behind as some courses have not been reviewed to fall in line with current realities. It is sad to note that some of our lecturers are still relying on researches conducted years ago; some of these no longer fit current challenges. On a positive note, some varsities now have entrepreneurial centres. But the type of skills taught are a different ballgame; mainly theoretical and lacking in practical applications.
Education is supposed to prepare young people for the challenges of facing the future and making the best of it. It is supposed to help students to discover themselves, nurture their innate abilities and give vent to their God-given talents. Education is not supposed to only “put food in the hands of a hungry lad.” It is supposed to help him create value out of his acquisitions which can be exchanged for a store of further value which eventually translate to wealth creation.
Education can therefore not be about passing examinations and getting promoted into the next grade. It cannot be about acquiring certificates that do not empower the holder to add value to society in real terms. I see it as a journey in self-discovery (which is why it never ends), a journey that leads a man to the place of his assignment, the duty post that enables him to contribute not only to the enrichment and betterment of society but also towards empowering him to attaining self-actualisation.
It would appear – in some quarters that – the one thing our educational system has not failed to do is to subtly glamorise riches and make it the ultimate in human pursuit. In spite of the hollowness of the type of scholarship that is delivered across the educational chain in Nigeria, young people are not left without the now common desire and vaulting ambition to get rich as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
A side effect of this is that ‘success literatures’ have taken over the book stands and libraries as a testament to the widespread subordination of hard work and diligence to riches at any cost. It is therefore not surprising that success-teaching entrepreneurs have created a burgeoning industry out of the lacuna that has been created by formal education, especially in the critical area of research.
Where did we derail? From the beginning of the quest for certificates, our prospective undergraduate is engaged in a rat race of passing his UTME exams to scaling the extra road block of Post-UTME screening. While in this race, most of them may not have been properly mentored to know what they are up against, except to acquire a certificate.
The journey of higher education in Nigeria places unduly strong emphasis on students passing examinations and acquiring certificates. Serious attempt to link or lead the students and eventual graduates to discovering their calling and how the education being acquired will empower them to be masters of their destinies in the very near future are most times discounted.
What’s my take on this? I believe the time to rethink our entire tertiary educational system is now. Education must be structured to unleash the potentials in every learner, leading them to acquire the much needed skills to become a source of value addition to life and the nation.
Much of the ignorance that encircles contemporary Nigeria today certainly stems from the education industry. It is easy to point to government’s lackluster attitude as the major problem of the educational sector. But that cannot be the whole truth. The education sector is also an adversary unto itself. Beyond turn-coat Ministers of Education, who even as academics helped to under-develop education, teachers and students have not lived up to expectation. In the lower levels (especially in the public schools), there are quack teachers who cannot read or write good English, and yet English remains the language of instruction.
Any nation’s educational system is a pastiche of the society. This is especially true of the universities which should be centres of excellence but which unfortunately has become a pitiable extension of the problematic political system in Nigeria. If the universities – indeed the entire educational system – must be the vanguard of excellence and development, they have to operate at a level higher than the ugly realities that define contemporary Nigeria.
More than anything else, I strongly believe we need the return of a vibrant intelligentsia that can bring back the era of all round research that addresses societal needs. This vibrant intelligentsia not only acquired certificates, but added knowledge to it, which is what is lacking in Nigeria.
