BEYOND CERTIFICATION: EXPECTATIONS AND TASK - by Olagoke Hamid and Bayo Azeez

Have you ever run through the thought of life after school? The expectations of your parent or sponsors who have invested in your studies to gaining your certificates, the application of all those things you’ve been thought in class, the life we are going to live after school, the people time permits us to meet in the future and other countless thoughts?
How will life after school look like? Am I going to seek for a job that is, in reality, not sufficient for the amount of graduates produced in a year? Do I really want to do the job my relatives have provided for me? Are the resources there to further my education or should I go back to the street of hustler, knowing fully well that I have gotten some knowledge to improve on what I was doing before?
We all know that in some months’ time, the institution will promote us to the labour market, which has been filled up like the yellow and black ‘Molue’ bus in Lagos. We are now left to take the bull by the horn.
Suffice to say that time will never wait for us if we can’t make use of it. Then let’s draw a plan now before the world plan our life for us. Let us start preparing for the life after certification. I mean let us discover ourselves now and start setting our agenda theories for the tough world beyond school.

Some of us will want to further our career to a higher level, start planning now. Start knowing the institution you are prospecting, find facts and requirements for the course you wish to study and read toward achieving the goal. Remember, gaining admission to top institutions in our country is very competitive; knowing fully well that most of these institutions have low capacity for the teaming prospective students.

You might also want to earn income with your certificate, the journey starts now! Knowing the industry you fit in and packaging yourself to meet the requirement is one major thing you should take with seriousness. Have it in mind that there are over 1.3 million unemployed citizens, in the recent reports by Vanguard newspaper dated 4th of August, 2015, vying to get job in the labour market but the employers have to choose few, why can’t you prepare yourself to be among the chosen few.
Another set of people I am addressing are those who wants to venture into businesses. If that is what you are good at, then follow your instincts. Who knows, you might be the next Dangote of our generation, the next Adenuga of our era. The Entrepreneurship and Marketing skills you acquired in school should be practicalised for a successful business you might want to do. Go back to the books; see what and what you can pick from them that may help your business to grow.

You will agree with me that there are categories of students here that see education as a tool ordinarily to accumulate wealth and affluent; but my mentor, Late Nelson Mandela, once said that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” and changing the world start with nobody but YOU.

YOU, in the sense that you determine what you do with the knowledge and skills you acquired while in school. But my humble advice for you is to utilize it to affect the society positively and profitably. Influence the society towards national development.

In Conclusion, I will like you to remember that lots of people are expecting a greater YOU after our academic triumphant journey, including that woman in your village that has been challenging your progress (an average African thinking). Our duty is not to disappoint them. It is a clarion call to all of us to awaken your future through rigorous planning and action. You will agree with me that the indispensability of planning to every phase of human’s life can’t be overemphasized. The popular axiom “he who fails to plan, is planning to fail” confirms the truism of my earlier preposition. Having a vision or dream is not enough but action and planning and planning and planning and planning to make a brighter rewarding future possible.

source: http://naijatinks..com.ng/2015/10/beyond-certification-expectations-and.html