El_capo: U make sense jare... even for our universities nah only theory den dey teach us.. Frm part 1 to part 5, haba i tire.ooo Imagine a cse graduate nt knwing hw to write any code except an old pascal programming even pascal himself don forget say hin write code wey be pascal. or is it dat our lecturers no sabi any practical ni

360command: with those ARTS you mentioned which seems not good enough for you , i think there is still alot for ART student in Nigeria and Africa to discover .We need art and science , we cannot all jump on the same boat. The fact that other countries are going into technology does not mean every country should follow. There must be a balance of trade so as it can become a globalized world/economy for everyone.

delors: We have geography graduates and lecturers yet we do not have e-maps working for us. No GPS, nothing.
We have engineers yet we cannot even manufacture electonics inspite of our population. Chinese phones flood our markets and we rush to buy them. all developed by kids. The first rounds of china phones that came to Nigeria were just experimental ones just to see how some outdated software worked. Now, thy are developing world competitors HTC and co. we kept mocking them but now, we are at their mercies.
WHAT ARE WE LEARNING AT SCHOOOOOOOOOL??

delors: We have geography graduates and lecturers yet we do not have e-maps working for us. No GPS, nothing.
We have engineers yet we cannot even manufacture electonics inspite of our population. Chinese phones flood our markets and we rush to buy them. all developed by kids. The first rounds of china phones that came to Nigeria were just experimental ones just to see how some outdated software worked. Now, thy are developing world competitors HTC and co. we kept mocking them but now, we are at their mercies.
WHAT ARE WE LEARNING AT SCHOOOOOOOOOL??

delors: Mr Moderator (CrazyMan), I bow to you o. So none of the topics in your section dey hit front page in spite of the resuorcefulness of the topics abi? When other yeye unimportant uncommentable unbelievable topics dey make front page on a daily basis ? Later una go dey yab our politicians and leaders when na like this dem take start. Even copy-and-paste topics wey people don over-read from yahoo, facebook, give-me-sport, etc dey make FP without a single comment or up to 100 views.
Better wake up bros.

delors: Hi guys,
I really feel compelled to write this because I think it’s high time we did sometime about education trend and study patterns in Nigeria (and Africa). Looking at the population of Nigerian students in tertiary institutions (home and abroad), it is saddening that students studying Art related courses constitute a larger percentage than those in pure and applied sciences.

While studying Art courses isn’t a bad idea altogether, but when 70% of the young minds run into Humanities, it becomes a big problem for the nation on the long run especially considering the fact that the world now is a science-defined, idea-driven and innovation-dependent one. Having gone through several top university directories in the States, Canada and United Kingdom, black students (and Nigerians) are wanting in core courses in sciences and applied sciences.

Majority of contemporary inventions (almost 98%) are done by science students in their teens, 20s and 30s. Unfortunately, one can actually count the number of young black inventors on one’s fingers.
Take a look at the list of some of these young inventors:
• Mark Zuckerberg (1984) was 20yo when he founded Facebook in 2004, along with Eduardo Saverin (Brazilian) @ 22,
Dustin Moskovitz @ 22, Chris Hughes @ 21 and Andrew McCollum.
• Jaan Tallinn (1972) founded SKYPE @ 31 in Estonia.
• Max Levchin (1975) was 23yo when he founded PAYPAL in 1998, along with Peter Thiel @31yo, Luke Nosek @ 23yo, Ken
Howery @ 23yo, Elon Musk @ 27yo.
• Mike Lazaridis (1961) founded Blackberry in Canada in 1999 @ 38yo
• Jan Koum (1977) and Brian Acton (1973) founded WhatsApp in 2009 @ 32yo and 36yo respectively.
• Ted Livingston was 20yo when he launched KIK in 2010.
• Larry Page (1973) and Sergey Brin (1973) were 25yo when they founded Google in 1998.
• Chad Hurley (1977) was 28yo when he founded Youtube in 2005 along with Jawed Karim @ 26yo and Steve Chen @ 27yo.
• Kevin Systrom (1984) and Michael Krieger (1986) were 26yo and 24yo when they founded Instagram in 2010.
• Jack Dorsey (1976) was 30yo when he founded Twitter in 2006 along with Evan Williams and Biz Stone.
• Talmon Marco, the founder of Viber is in his 30s.
• Reid Garrett Hoffman (1967) was 35yo when he founded LinkedIn in 2002
And of course, my favorites, my friends and young Canadian entrepreneurs,
• Hongwei Liu (21yo) and Leander Lee (19yo) were just 20yo and 18yo when they started MappedIn in Waterloo, Canada. Now, they are rolling in millions. Check out their 7mins Dragon’s Den presentation here: http://www.mappedin.ca/about (click on the Dragon’s Den Video).

All the apps on Google play, Play Stores and Appstores are developed by teenagers and early 20yos in North America, Asia and Europe; and these apps are downloaded by millions every day. Who isn’t familiar with games like Angry Birds, Jewel Stars, Bubbleshoots, Minecraft, Tetris, Solitaire, Mario, Mortal Kombat, Sudoku, Scrabble, Monopoly, Temple Run, etc All these are being developed by teenagers and 20yos.

Landmark break-throughs are being recorded daily in cancer research, quantum physics, neuroscience, health, environment, engineering, space science, aeronautics, computer science, finance, etc but we hardly hear of Nigeria names (or even Africans) being mentioned. And these are carried out by young scholars - Caucasians and Asians predominantly.

The bottom line is, we have to start encouraging our young ones to venture into science especially from junior high school. When 60% of the students in a university is into Arts and Humanities (Philosophy, Mass Comm, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Political Science, Public Admin, Music, Philosophy, Cultural Dance, Geography, etc), then there is a big problem for the country and the future of the youths. Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Further Maths must be encouraged at all cost.

Your opinions and contributions are welcome. Share with us if you know a young black (Nigerian or African) with inventions. Thanks.

Saint Chukz: ^ Although basically Science covers a wide range of disciplines. And i don't think it is every one of those disciplines that are progressive in outlook. What i mean here is that some science disciplines will only offer basic principles that were applied in the past. But what in your opinion do you think are those science disciplines that can a solution to future problems? because that's the main need for science- solving problems.

Ajibel: Op, you and i share almost exactly the same thought. I think practicals should be encouraged to take bulk of school activities and leave students to do research on the internet on theory aspect. Most of what is being taught theoretically are available FREELY on the internet. Practicals should take a major chunk during exams and the education board should reduce OBJ questions of A, B ,C etc. It makes us lazy and encourages malpractice. I have more to say buh no one listens to me

Ajibel: Op, you and i share almost exactly the same thought. I think practicals should be encouraged to take bulk of school activities and leave students to do research on the internet on theory aspect. Most of what is being taught theoretically are available FREELY on the internet. Practicals should take a major chunk during exams and the education board should reduce OBJ questions of A, B ,C etc. It makes us lazy and encourages malpractice. I have more to say buh no one listens to me

zebra: More practical learning and less theory is done in the polytechnics. Are u saying that universities too should emphasize on more practical learning than theory too? I thought their mandate is to research and come out with designs?

delors: And with all the practicals and applications at Polytechnics, what do we have to show? Absolutely nothing. malaria fever kills everyday in Nigeria than anywhere in the world, yet our medical researchers have no solution (thanks to our herbalists who can cure with very bitter concoctions).
With polytechnics sprawling all over Nigeria, we are yet to produce a torch light. the last ones i saw were imported from china.
- Mention a Nigerian company that produces umbrella.
- mention one that produces tyres or even NYSC boots.
- Mention one construction or engineering company in Nigeria whose staff is 100% Nigerians and 100% locally trained...

zebra: But what is really the problem with the nigerian educational system? What about the millions of Naira govt allocates to universities and lecturers for research every year? Can they show us what they've achieved with it in terms of research? Only God knows the solution to Nigeria's problems.

delors:
That's the main thing. Nobody knows what research they do. I really dont understand. No accountability whatsoever. Pathetic.
I can count the number of lecturers that have blogs in Nigeria. How can they even have blogs when there is nothing to put on it. SMH

Djtm:
Lecturers have labs where they carry out research (@least in some schools). I know some lecturers who do. The problem is that these research are funded by foreign organizations and they pay them (the lecturers) monthly. Any breakthrough or discovery from those research will be in the organization's name. So you basically will not hear of any achievement until government starts funding research.
As for the dude who talked about government pouring millions of naira into universities, those 'millions' are not enough to run the system. I heard from someone who heard from the v.c of a school that the money they receive from the government is just a little above what they need to pay salaries. They receive 60% of the needed money and about 50% are used to pay salaries. They have to generate the rest themselves every year. Have you ever wondered why a school that will admit 5000 students will sell 80k post utme forms?
I heard from Gov Fashola himself that Lagos state's annual allocated budget is about 5% of that of Havard university.

since_1914: As much as I don't totally dispute your analogy, I still think it has a lot more to do with individual ambitions and independent mindedness than the school curriculum, or else what do we say about people who never set foot on a University campus at all, but turned successful at a young age? Considering that a high school education isn't even sufficient enough 'technical' knowledge to invent all that you have listed. In my opinion, I think it takes a lot of personal effort fueled by ambition to achieve this. Take for instance Dave Karp the 27 year old High-school drop-out CEO of Tumblr whose company was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in May this year, he practically taught himself all he knew about his trade and still went on to make a success out of it.

since_1914: These kind of people are typically restless and simply can't stick to conventional routines and are also usually very stubborn about what they want to achieve, for them, it doesn't matter if everybody is headed in one direction, they will simply head in the opposite if it will further their cause. The truth is,most Africans are too scared to take the unconventional route to their dreams. They would rather go to school, graduate and get a good job like everyone else and probably keep 'daydreaming' about launching their own venture someday (but would probably never get around to doing it).

since_1914: Another reason is that, Most Nigerians nay Africans cannot see beyond money, and would rather have instant wealth than taking the time to do anything of value. Most of these inventors you talked about started their ventures with the aim of been part of something of VALUE, and eventually that value translates to wealth. But here, people simply assume that it is only wealth that can create value.For instance after Max Levchin and his partners sold Paypal to Ebay in 2002, he said he was almost depressed because he spent day and night wondering what to do to stay busy (after collecting his own share of at least $32 million from the sale). According to him, he simply wanted to be a CEO of 'something' it didn't matter what it was, he just wanted it to be something of value, so he went to work and today he has to his credit a string of ventures like HVF, Affirm, Glow, Yelp and Slide (which he sold to Google).

since_1914: Another key but surmountable obstacle here in Africa, is the availability of private funding. Most of these businesses you listed got funding from investors at one time or the other during the early stages of the business, which in the long run helped shaped it early enough. Although, this isn't much of a problem in Africa today as it used to be in the past, because a handful of African start-ups are beginning to receive funding from overseas Venture Capitals and Private Equity funds, it could still be better.

since_1914: Lastly, I think most Africans are mentally lazy, they simply don't like leaving their comfort zone, not even for a brief moment. Even on this forum, people show up here to ask very mundane questions that they could easily have googled themselves, or better still, taken time to digest all the information at their disposal, they would rather want other people to talk them through the pile of information that is right before them. Whereas the one hour they spent fighting E-tribal wars on Nairaland would have been more than sufficient for them use to thoroughly grasp all the information they seek.

zebra: i won't believe what u just said. Federal govt give research grants to federal universities that claim to be doing researches every year different from the money used in running the universities. If govt were not giving them research grants they would have probably gone on strike for that reason, or better still come out to tell nigerians that govt are not encouraging them financially on research. Because they have no research agenda they divert money meant for research into other uses.

zebra: i won't believe what u just said. Federal govt give research grants to federal universities that claim to be doing researches every year different from the money used in running the universities. If govt were not giving them research grants they would have probably gone on strike for that reason, or better still come out to tell nigerians that govt are not encouraging them financially on research. Because they have no research agenda they divert money meant for research into other uses.