Chikelu Mba (see photo in link) http://www.gpgr2.com/pdf/cv_speaker/Chike%20Mba.pdf
Chike has recently joined the Plant Production and Protection Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy. The main thrust of his activities focuses on policy and capacity enhancement interventions aimed at facilitating the sustainable use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in member countries of FAO. Prior to this FAO tour of duty, he spent the last seven years leading the Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory of the Joint Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture of FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria. His main tasks at the Joint Programme involved the application of induced crop mutations facilitated by molecular biology, including reverse
genetics strategies, and cell and tissue biology techniques to develop superior crop varieties. The Coordinated Research and Technical Cooperation Projects mechanisms of the IAEA provided the platforms to work closely with scientists on these themes. His work is amply enriched by his several years of experience working on food security crops, especially cassava. He was a cassava breeder in his native Nigeria and was implemental to developing and deploying genomics tools for the crop; he authored a majority of the simple sequence repeat markers for the cassava genome during his five-year tenure at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia. While at CIAT, he also coordinated the activities of the erstwhile Cassava Biotechnology Network for Latin America and the Caribbean. He holds a PhD (1992) in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the University of Nigeria.

This man graduated less than 20 years ago from a Nigerian university and got all those international jobs on that basis. He has no foreign academic degrees.

I am just wondering how far the youths of today's Nigeria who study there can go, given the level of bastardization of our university system.

IAEA vacancy advertisement to recruit Dr. Mba's replacement

http://www.eurosciencejobs.com/job_display/6592/Laboratory_Head_Plant_Breeding_and_Genetics_Section_P5_IAEA_International_Atomic_Energy_Agency_Vienna

Thanks for the info, I'm about sending in my c.v dont worry i'll make you proud. lol
Seriously though, i believe Nigerian Graduates are mostly subjected to unfair criticisms. True the system has been bastardized, true you can buy your grades if you've got the means, true half baked graduates are churned out sometimes, but is really all doom and gloom? Are all Nigerian graduates worthless because we have a crappy system? Do they all deserve to be described with that ridiculous phrase 'today's Graduates'?
I remember standing at the podium while studying late at night in my school auditorioum, an over 1000 seater hall filled to capacity with each student with either a candle, lantern or rechargeable - yes no light and even when there was light, the few fluorescents that were still functional provided only a miserably poorly lit hall, From the podium it looked kinda beautiful to behold with the Hundreds of individual lights, but beyond the beauty I was always encouraged by my the number of those folks that would choose to brave the heat, strain their eyes with their swaying candles and choose to spend the night studying than do what was natural - sleep.
CONT'D BELOW

When all those poultry called educational institutions are shut down and re-built, with meaningful accreditation and regulation.
Till then, no hope.

Of course we r all victims of a terrible system that has subjected us to such unnecessary difficulties but at the same time I believe the average Ngrn student deserves commendatn not ridicule. The minute u step into school u have a choice, its either u study hard n succeed or u choose 2 "just graduate" by whatever means possible and we have a system that will help u in whichever choice u make! Some choose to brave d odds and come out with a degree they can defend(at least i know i can defend mine even though i wasnt close 2 being the best in my set) , so to come out and be described with that sickening innuendo -todays graduates is sickening and a touch ignorant.
Universities are much more today and are pouring out thousands of graduates annually than they did a decade ago so possibly, the number of so called half baked graduates would be more, But to think Nigerian institutions can no longer produce worthy intellectuals is no more than grade 1 naivety. CONCLUDED

Well, the first generation Nigerians still get their best students picked up by the best UK and US universities.
The likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Stanford and MIT still pick up the best of the best at Unilag, UNN, OAU, ABU, and the rest of them, on scholarship. So much for the bastardization.

AjanleKoko:

Well, the first generation Nigerians still get their best students picked up by the best UK and US universities.
The likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Stanford and MIT still pick up the best of the best at Unilag, UNN, OAU, ABU, and the rest of them, on scholarship. So much for the bastardization.

Yes I agree on the above, but I was actually talking on the possibility of Nigerians with Nigerian degrees getting employment in the west with their Nigerian degrees these days. There is a difference between that and admittance to graduate studies abroad. Do you know of many (any) Nigerians with Nigerian degrees getting jobs abroad these days? When I say abroad, I do not mean Ghana or Cameroun.

Nchara:

Yes I agree on the above, but I was actually talking on the possibility of Nigerians with Nigerian degrees getting employment in the west with their Nigerian degrees these days. There is a difference between that and admittance to graduate studies abroad. Do you know of many (any) Nigerians with Nigerian degrees getting jobs abroad these days? When I say abroad, I do not mean Ghana or Cameroun.

I just have to laugh on the Ghana and Cameroun bit.

To answer your question, I would say, many still. Although the market has changed, so you might be looking in the wrong direction.

I'll start by asking you a twofold question: What kind of jobs were available to global workers twenty years ago, and what jobs are available today? Also, what would you say is the level of representation that Nigerians provide to the global labour pool?

I don't have access to any statistics on the global jobs market, but I am sure the dynamics are very different from, say, thirty years ago. By global jobs market I am referring to the pool of jobs around the world, created by academic institutions and multinational corporations, and filled from the international market. That is why you see multinationals with Indians, Chinese, Malays, Filipinos, and, yes, Nigerians, anywhere they are operating.

This is as opposed to statutory jobs that require local expertise, and are not open to foreigners. I.e. local jobs created for the local economy.

To get jobs in the first category, i.e. the global market, you need to have a skill that's in demand. Depending on the industry, it has a lot more to do with the industry's pre-requisites than your qualifications. For example, in the telecoms industry, Nigeria has exported engineers to all over the world since 2001, including the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Asia (yes, Asia!), the rest of the Americas, and of course other parts of Africa.

Same as the energy sector, where the Big Oil players in Nigeria regularly transplant Nigerian engineers to work on their projects around the world, till today. I guess it is the same thing in academics. Ivy League schools in the US and Canada recruit 1st class graduates from Nigeria as teaching/research assistants cum postgrad students. Let's say Exxon needs a well engineering specialist in Venezuela. Unless there is extenuating regulation in Venezuela, they simply turn to that international pool and hire the best match for salary and experience they can find, regardless of nationality, academic background, and color of skin. Taking Americans to Venezuela would usually not be sensible economics.

To get jobs in the second category you probably have to naturalize in some sort of capacity. Which is where we face a lot of competition from Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos, asides from natural born citizens of those countries where Nigerians emigrate to for work and study. That's really the areas that we are able to see most, because not everybody is a reservoir or well engineer with Schlumberger, a 3G packet core switching engineer trained on Ericsson technologies, or even a first class physics graduate from Ife who was top of his faculty. In those categories, as well as a few other fringe areas, Nigerians are indeed getting first rate jobs in first-rate work environments. Trust me, I know this first hand.

AjanleKoko:

I just have to laugh on the Ghana and Cameroun bit.

To answer your question, I would say, many still. Although the market has changed, so you might be looking in the wrong direction.

I'll start by asking you a twofold question: What kind of jobs were available to global workers twenty years ago, and what jobs are available today? Also, what would you say is the level of representation that Nigerians provide to the global labour pool?

I don't have access to any statistics on the global jobs market, but I am sure the dynamics are very different from, say, thirty years ago. By global jobs market I am referring to the pool of jobs around the world, created by academic institutions and multinational corporations, and filled from the international market. That is why you see multinationals with Indians, Chinese, Malays, Filipinos, and, yes, Nigerians, anywhere they are operating.

This is as opposed to statutory jobs that require local expertise, and are not open to foreigners. I.e. local jobs created for the local economy.

To get jobs in the first category, i.e. the global market, you need to have a skill that's in demand. Depending on the industry, it has a lot more to do with the industry's pre-requisites than your qualifications. For example, in the telecoms industry, Nigeria has exported engineers to all over the world since 2001, including the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Asia (yes, Asia!), the rest of the Americas, and of course other parts of Africa.

Same as the energy sector, where the Big Oil players in Nigeria regularly transplant Nigerian engineers to work on their projects around the world, till today. I guess it is the same thing in academics. Ivy League schools in the US and Canada recruit 1st class graduates from Nigeria as teaching/research assistants come postgrad students. Let's say Exxon needs a well engineering specialist in Venezuela. Unless there is extenuating regulation in Venezuela, they simply turn to that international pool and hire the best match for salary and experience they can find, regardless of nationality, academic background, and color of skin. Taking Americans to Venezuela would usually not be sensible economics.

To get jobs in the second category you probably have to naturalize in some sort of capacity. Which is where we face a lot of competition from Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos, asides from natural born citizens of those countries where Nigerians emigrate to for work and study. That's really the areas that we are able to see most, because not everybody is a reservoir or well engineer with Schlumberger, a 3G packet core switching engineer trained on Ericsson technologies, or even a first class physics graduate from Ife who was top of his faculty. In those categories, as well as a few other fringe areas, Nigerians are indeed getting first rate jobs in first-rate work environments. Trust me, I know this first hand.

So all hope is not lost then. Means the situation is not as dire as the media paint it? Also may I ask if those Nigerian getting jobs abroad TODAY are recent graduates or those who graduated several years back and had obtained good experience in Shell, Agip, NNPC etc? Just curious. Can I graduate from UniLag today in Engineering/Pharmacy etc, and get my first job in the USA/UK, etc, not as a graduate assistant but FULL job?

Nchara:

So all hope is not lost then. Means the situation is not as dire as the media paint it? Also may I ask if those Nigerian getting jobs abroad TODAY are recent graduates or those who graduated several years back and had obtained good experience in Shell, Agip, NNPC etc? Just curious. Can I graduate from UniLag today in Engineering/Pharmacy etc, and get my first job in the USA/UK, etc, not as a graduate assistant but FULL job?

To answer your first question, most of the Nigerian grads getting jobs abroad today are recent graduates (10 years and below). And most if not all have strictly local experience, albeit in multinationals or strong local conglomerates.

To answer your second question, no, of course not. But then, is anybody in the US hiring Indian graduates fresh from school in India, or Chinese graduates fresh from school in China? Answer is also no. The reason for this is in my earlier post.

Let me help you to correct an impression, a University Degree is only a certificate. It only shows you have actually attended the institution and studied the course indicated for the period indicated.

It is like a movie script. The interpretation is an individual thing. Not a few Nigerian graduates - recent or old are giving their own excellent interpretation. If you are unable to interprete it like a star, then you are not one. Don't let anyone make you think you are inferior. You are not only if you do the hard work required to prove you are on top of your game.

On the conrtary, I think Nigerian graduates of today actually have more support to excel like the internet and so on. But like everything, many do not use the opportunity well. A lot of Nigerian students don't like to work hard reserching, reading, going the extra mile to achive success. They will rather spend time on midnight calls, facebook, twitter, Niraland and co just wasting time.

I work with a multinational firm and I have had the opportunity of working both within and outside Nigeria. I have also met a lot of other talented Nigerians doing great things and they did not attend any foreign schools.

If you can, aim for a foreign education at a post graduate level, but degrees don't give you the job. A degree is only a minimum requirement. You have to demonstrate an above-average understanding of the concepts you have studied and show other good qualities of sound reasoning and problem solving abilities. You must have the ability to think and create solutions to any problems you are confronted with - no matter how novel. That is where a lot of people are deficient. It is not enough to know just what they taught you in school, you need to be able to deploy your faculty in any situation. That is what makes you 'employable'.

A lot of people have degrees but are not employable due to inadequate demonstration of cognitive/abstraction abilities. Every company is first of all a business concern. And most businesses make money by solving other people's problems. So if they must hire you, you must show that your IQ is solid and can be deployed in creating solutions, that in turn create value for everybody. If you can do this, then anybody can emply you whether in Nigeria or outside.

But you have to realise that when a company is hiring you from outside, then they are hiring you as an expatriate - that means you are both an expert in the field and also from another Country. Now that is where it becomes near impossible. They need to apply for a work permit on your behalf to their country's embassy or consulate and in doing that they must demonstrate that you are an expert and that the job you are coming to do has not got other qualified nationals with the required skill set to do it. How can a fresh gradute then qualify? That's why I will encourage you to take any job you get locally seriously no matter the size of the firm or the scope - because it could be the foundation on which to get that international job of your dreams - definitely not on where your degree comes from. That is why someone like me can get offers from recruiters abroad for jobs in the UK, US, middle east or any other part of the world - based on my experience level. Mind you I have only one engineering degree from FUTO.

I'm sorry if I talked too much but as one who is interested in providing guidance for youger people for making right decisions, I get passionate when I see topics like this.

one tree can not make a forest.

@Eluala, good comments. I concur.

@ nthread poster - kindly replace the word 'when' at the begining of the thread title to 'why'

thnks eluala.dt ws encouragin!

Yea wesley,  Nigerians are hardworking and resilient in so many aspect of life. If the present day Nigerian student is schooled in thesame environment and infrastructure with their western world and European peers , Nigerians will always take the lead.
  The problem is that we dont believe in our selves.


A typical serious Nigerian student today( I am not talking of OOs) is by far better than thesame calibre of student trained 25yrs ago in thesame institution.  You knw why? . IT IS SIMPLE . THEY ARE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF AN IMPROVED GENERATION. My fathers days are not thesame with my days and my days cannot be thesame with my Children's days. They will be better informed because they will definitely add to what I give them. Infact I introduced my kids to some sort of  a children fashioned computer laptop at the age of 5 some earlier than that and today they are all computer literate . Such facility was not available or easily affordable when I was dat age.
There is absolutely no subject in the school curricular that you cannot find in the internet today. Hence after the usual lecture/ school hours serious student seeks avenues to further acquire knowledge on the subject earlier taught. We are leaving in an era of highly improved information technology. Some serious engineering students before graduation the have even learnt Autocad. such was not available in our days.

Please stop belittling Nigerian students, the serious ones seeks to acquire same level of knowledge if not more compared to their foriegn colleagues.

Having graduated from one of the univesities in nigeria some years back,I never knew what the labour market has for me. But one thing I had in mind then was that I've got to succeed. It will never be easy to make it ones as a fresh graduate but one needs ''on the job experience'' to compare and appreciate whatever was taught then in the university. No matter how we see it, my third year to my final year text book remain a vital weapon in my arsenal to conquer my present challenges,

So as a fresher, you do not have to think you can get that job of your dream just like that. You really need to work hard and develop yourself for future challenges. Even in Nigeria, you still need to compete with thousands of graduates who are qualified and even have some experiences to show. So to get that job you need anywhere in the world, you then need to show the world that u've got what it takes irrespective of you school of study.

@ Ajanlekoko,

We need to help this generation overcome fear and negative mental attitude. Thanks for your intelligent, time-tested and wise comments also.

Nchara:

This man graduated less than 20 years ago from a Nigerian university and got all those international jobs on that basis. He has no foreign academic degrees.

I am just wondering how far the youths of today's Nigeria who study there can go, given the level of bastardization of our university system.

You are what you make yourself. A country of victims cannot progress. its a victim mentality to blame everything on the system. there are nigerian youths doing well today without any issues and they have never stepped out of the country.

Nchara:

So all hope is not lost then. Means the situation is not as dire as the media paint it? Also may I ask if those Nigerian getting jobs abroad TODAY are recent graduates or those who graduated several years back and had obtained good experience in Shell, Agip, NNPC etc? Just curious. Can I graduate from UniLag today in Engineering/Pharmacy etc, and get my first job in the USA/UK, etc, not as a graduate assistant but FULL job?

I have classmates currently working in the UK already. Work out there is meritorious. If you have the skills and you have a body of evidence of completed work or achievement, you will be recruited. A programmer with 11 completed complex software projects is a gem anywhere in the world. A certified financial analyst is a hotcake anywhere in the world even with nigerian first degree.

YOu are what you make yourself.

Eluala God bless u. You stole my mind.

worth what name

Eluala, thanks for that piece. Its quite enlightening.

Good comment from some intelligent folks

@Eluala I think you should conduct a seminar in this regard, you will be helping a lot of Nigeria graduates.

For today graduates with the challenging marketplace, you need an outlet to prove you are the best man for the job.

If Nigerian graduates are half-baked like you guys say, how come when they go for Graduate studies abroad, they usually end up Top 5 academically in their classes there? Make una leave story abeg!!!

Mavor:

If Nigerian graduates are half-baked like you guys say, how come when they go for Graduate studies abroad, they usually end up Top 5 academically in their classes there? Make una leave story abeg!!!

not all. i hv alot of them in my school dat r no brilliant at all.Only few take education serious here in US-i mean those dat paid with their own money- not those dat their parents pay for them.
@eluala n ajanlekoko: hmmmm, wat more can i say?i quite agree with all ur encouraging comments but hv u ever wondered y it's hard for fresh graduates to break-even in 9ja?u can only land good jobs with long legs n godfatherism.i hv a guy here whose father told him to come home and start a job with total/elf.this is some1 with no experience at all,he hardly reads n he is a third class student in class.With a whole lot of qualified n intelligent 9ja grads littering the doors of these companies looking for job,r u telling me dat none of them is qualified?it's also common among these coys to screen graduates based on age n work experience,how can a fresh grad hv 5yrs working experience n must not be above 26?
Let God help us in dat country

The real meaning of knowledge is using your real life experience in interpreting abstract concepts, so to learn is to change the path to enlightenment is at the middle way, it is the path between two opposite extremes.

There is one important points we are ignoring in our analysis. We are comparing ourselves with people who have already conquered poverty, a student needs serenity of the mind before he can digest information. We are comparing ourselve with people with centuries of organised production and technological efficiency.

Despite all the odds against us, something happened, the birth of the Internet. the internet has created a favourable enviroment for us to compete irrespective of our physical locations. let me use myself as a case study.
I am a third class graduate of economics from a Nigerian university who by inclination became an IT specialist. I have always believed in my intellectual ability as an induvidual. I go on international fora online to discuss prevailing economic and technological issues in IT, and my contributions stands out from theirs(People trained and working in the developed world). I have gotten recognition from a Cisco supported technology sites, and leading software development firms in the UK. I authored books selling on Amazon, Lulu, Go dady, etc and I get fantastic feedbacks. If you can do it, you can do it anywhere.

Eluala, honestly you need to tell me where you live in PH so I can come and deliver the handshake.

To me there are 2 types of people that go through the Nigerian education system and come out still good and worthy to be termed well-baked graduates:

a) Those that are naturally intelligent. Blessed with cutting edge, analytical thinking and would still be intelligent even if they did not attend uni. These are the geniuses that no system can hold down. Nigeria's Einsteins, Keynes and Newtons.

b) Those who are very disciplined, well mentored at home, decent pre-university education from solid private/public schools and studious. They are good at seeking and exploiting resources to get them through the inadequacies the Nigerian education environment provides. They are hardworking, good at prioritising what is important in life and willing learners.

Unfortunately, these batch would, in my view, be less than 10% of the graduates churned out of Nigerian universities every year. The leaders of these 10% are the bulk of the best of the best AjanleKoko is referring to as the types that go for further studies abroad or join multi-national companies and then get more international exposure.

A disproportionate number of these 10% are graduates of the universities I term as the Tier 1a of Nigerian universities. They are OAU, UI and Unilag. I would expect these three to provide 6 out of 10 of the 10% and the Tier 1b of the likes of UNN, ABU, Uniben, Unilorin, Jos, Cal, PH, ESUT etc to account for 3 out of 10, while the rest of the universities take the remaining 1.

The sad thing is that, for the rest of Nigerian graduates (circa 90% in my view), I am sorry to say, I have very little regards for their quality. You see alot of them in the UK or even on Nairaland and their mentality and dialectics make you cringe. You will struggle to believe these are graduates (some even postgrads) from the way they reason and the points the make in their arguments. People that know nothing about facts, only stewpid conjectures and some even type only in textspeak. They make me sad, mad and scared that these are the future of Nigeria.  

Their failure or the educational systems failure in developing them is further magnified by the fact that culturally Nigerians are very boisterous. So these guys are some of the most vocal people you can meet and hence frequently demonstrating their ignorance, and even when pointed out that they are wrong, maintain it out of pride instead of listening and learning.

We need to revamp the education system.

@Eluala, that was just on point! Good one.

Sagamite:
the Tier 1b of the likes of UNN, ABU, Uniben, Unilorin, Jos, Cal, PH, ESUT etc

Bro, stop referring to ABU as 'Tier 1B'. ABU is right up there with your 'Tier 1A'.

revomind:

@Eluala, that was just on point! Good one.Bro, stop referring to ABU as 'Tier 1B'. ABU is right up there with your 'Tier 1A'.

Look this man. I no go argue that wan on this thread.