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jantavanta (m)
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The low expenditure on education must have lead to the continuous collapse of the educational infrastructure on the campuses. The resulting contraction of the academic space has been taken over by White-Collar religious fundamentalism. The question is not about religion  but about WHITE-COLLAR RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM that has in the last 10 years, taken over the primary purpose of seeking admission into the university. The situation was different in the 60s and 70s when expenditure was at its peak and some departments were well-equipped world-class centres of excellence. Students are frustrated with the inadequacy of the university and are seeking their advancement in another plane of existence since the acquisition of knowledge and know-how is appearing to be futile. Presently, lecture rooms are being bombarded with competing "communities of the saved" that harass students with verbal weaponry, unlike the campus gangster groups a.k.a "cults" that use physical weaponry. In the face of globalisation, it may be better for those who can afford it to study in foreign universities that are better funded. Nigeria graduates are becoming white-collar hewers of wood, compared to their predecessors in the 60s and 70s: The Golden Age of Nigerian education. If expenditure is so low, then an increase in expenditure would be the right path to solving the problem. |
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davidif (m)
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I am a strong christian my man and that has nothing to do with Nigeria's poor education, infact, there are lots of Christian science students from Caltech to MIT and this does not make them any less smarter, so i think blaming religion on Nigeria's pathetic educational system, even the bible says that "the foolishness of God is wiser than man" If expenditure is so low, then an increase in expenditure would be the right path to solving the problem. WORD |
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Njiogu
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Asian schools are presently doing marvelously. The best evidence is the pratical results in technological development and advances. They have well structured academic curriculum tailored to meet the pratical needs of the century rather than some ambigous 'black-hole 'researches. DO you ever wonder the abundance of Asian electronic products in the international markets? I wish we could ever copy their practical -oriented curriculum in Nigeria
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davidif (m)
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You need to read this great article from The Economist. The underworked American Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print edition Children are exceptions to the country’s work ethic AMERICANS like to think of themselves as martyrs to work. They delight in telling stories about their punishing hours, snatched holidays and ever-intrusive BlackBerrys. At this time of the year they marvel at the laziness of their European cousins, particularly the French. Did you know that the French take the whole of August off to recover from their 35-hour work weeks? Have you heard that they are so addicted to their holidays that they leave the sick to die and the dead to moulder? There is an element of exaggeration in this, of course, and not just about French burial habits; studies show that Americans are less Stakhanovite than they think. Still, the average American gets only four weeks of paid leave a year compared with seven for the French and eight for the Germans. In Paris many shops simply close down for August; in Washington, where the weather is sweltering, they remain open, some for 24 hours a day. But when it comes to the young the situation is reversed. American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Over 12 years, a 15-day deficit means American children lose out on 180 days of school, equivalent to an entire year. American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden. On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese. Americans also divide up their school time oddly. They cram the school day into the morning and early afternoon, and close their schools for three months in the summer. The country that tut-tuts at Europe’s mega-holidays thinks nothing of giving its children such a lazy summer. But the long summer vacation acts like a mental eraser, with the average child reportedly forgetting about a month’s-worth of instruction in many subjects and almost three times that in mathematics. American academics have even invented a term for this phenomenon, “summer learning loss”. This pedagogical understretch is exacerbating social inequalities. Poorer children frequently have no one to look after them in the long hours between the end of the school day and the end of the average working day. They are also particularly prone to learning loss. They fall behind by an average of over two months in their reading. Richer children actually improve their performance. The understretch is also leaving American children ill-equipped to compete. They usually perform poorly in international educational tests, coming behind Asian countries that spend less on education but work their children harder. California’s state universities have to send over a third of their entering class to take remedial courses in English and maths. At least a third of successful PhD students come from abroad. A growing number of politicians from both sides of the aisle are waking up to the problem. Barack Obama has urged school administrators to “rethink the school day”, arguing that “we can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home ploughing the land at the end of each day.” Newt Gingrich has trumpeted a documentary arguing that Chinese and Indian children are much more academic than American ones. These politicians have no shortage of evidence that America’s poor educational performance is weakening its economy. A recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the lagging performance of the country’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, has wreaked more devastation on the economy than the current recession. Learning the lesson A growing number of schools are already doing what Mr Obama urges, and experimenting with lengthening the school day. About 1,000 of the country’s 90,000 schools have broken the shackles of the regular school day. In particular, charter schools in the Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP) start the school day at 7.30am and end at 5pm, hold classes on some Saturdays and teach for a couple of weeks in the summer. All in all, KIPP students get about 60% more class time than their peers and routinely score better in tests. Still, American schoolchildren are unlikely to end up working as hard as the French, let alone the South Koreans, any time soon. There are institutional reasons for this. The federal government has only a limited influence over the school system. Powerful interest groups, most notably the teachers’ unions, but also the summer-camp industry, have a vested interest in the status quo. But reformers are also up against powerful cultural forces. One is sentimentality; the archetypical American child is Huckleberry Finn, who had little taste for formal education. Another is complacency. American parents have led grass-root protests against attempts to extend the school year into August or July, or to increase the amount of homework their little darlings have to do. They still find it hard to believe that all those Chinese students, beavering away at their books, will steal their children’s jobs. But Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884. And brain work is going the way of manual work, to whoever will provide the best value for money. The next time Americans make a joke about the Europeans and their taste for la dolce vita, they ought to take a look a bit closer to home. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13825184 |
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ayobase
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Don't worry, Africa is coming
up to dust them off.
God Bless Nigeria!
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davidif (m)
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Don't worry, Africa is coming
up to dust them off.
God Bless Nigeria! Amen. |
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SEFAGO (m)
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These politicians have no shortage of evidence that America’s poor educational performance is weakening its economy. A recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the lagging performance of the country’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, has wreaked more devastation on the economy than the current recession.
God punish mckinsey, as if the poor performance is the children's fault |
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Sagamite (m)
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These politicians have no shortage of evidence that America’s poor educational performance is weakening its economy. A recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the lagging performance of the country’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, has wreaked more devastation on the economy than the current recession.
I was actually having a thought similar to this this morning when they were discussing the aspirations of UK kids on a BBC programme. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6250626/Children-would-rather-become-popstars-than-teachers-or-lawyers.htmlMy conclusion was that this stupid upbringing is what would be the latent driver for other countries like China, India and Brazil to overtake most of these western countries economically. Whilst chinese kids are working hard to be doctors, engineers, IT specialists etc, the products of these decandent western society are aspiring to be on X-factor or Big Brother.  No way in hell is my child growing up in UK or USA (coastal areas especially). |
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davidif (m)
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Omo, sagamite, you are right, when i was a child, you dare not tell your parents that you wanted to even want to be a footballer talkless of a pop star and they wonder why countries like singapore still has the best educational system (primary and secondary school) in the world. Other countries realize that the chink in America's armour are its lazy children and its poor public schools. They realize that if there elementary and secondary school system is better then they can overtake the Americans because whoever has the best educational system that produces the most innovation is going to be the most dominant country in the world in the 21st century that is why this countries are trying to educate as many people as possible. On a side note, i am happy for Brazil that it is finally living up to potential, they had been misbehaving for a long time my proffessor worked there as a consultant for a manufacturing industry long ago and he spoke of how sad that a country who should be competing toe to toe with the US was still way behind, now they are really doing very, very well. God punish mckinsey, as if the poor performance is the children's fault Geoffrey "Jeff" Canada, head of harlem's public schools (i think) recently pushed for reforms in the public school system in New York realized that if you push for excellence that students would do incredibly well irrespective of the child's background. This findings were incredibly stunning because everybody thought that because you are a poor kid that chances of success in school is going to be very low, because in other to succeed in academics, you need three factors working well simultaneously together: the student, the parents and the teachers, jeff Canada proved that if you had a very good school system that requires excellence from ALL STUDENTS, it could replace the parent in that triad and could make the students excel. This was how he proved everybody wrong. This is why the Japanese school system is so excellent because instead of having lazy teachers who just have belief in the faulty premise of the bell curve (the notion that in a random class, there are 10% smart kids, 10% dumb kids and everybody else is in between) they have teachers who believe that every student should be excellent. This is the same reason why not only is their school system much better than that of the americans but even there goods. These mentality permeates every aspect of ther life. As you know by now, the japanese are obsessed with quality and believe that every product (example: cars) should be without flaw whilst Americans believe that bad and faulty cars are inevitable so they try and make as many cars as possible and hope to keep the number of cars with defects to a minimum. Unfortunately, the cost of making bad cars crippled there companies brands and overall future revenues of there company. Example is the cost of recalling several cars or the crippling warranty costs of making products. Sorry for the long example, but what i am trying to get at is that IF YOU DEMAND EXCELLENCE FROM EVERY STUDENT, YOU WOULD GET IT, afterall, intelligence is something that one develops and nurtures. On a side note, there is a reason why i didn't mention the israeli school system even though it is one of the best in the world and that is because the gap between the best students and all other students keeps widening, its not as bad as naija where the gap is incredibly wide. My mother used to tell me that when she was in secondary school, her teacher used to only focus on the smartest kids in class and there was only 3 of them and they usually sat on the front. The teacher would only go to the next chapter after asking them if they understood the content, he didn't even bother to ask anybody else in class, because as far as he was concerned they were all 'olodos'. My mom had to go teach herself that is why she excelled. Unfortunately, very, very few students are born with this kind of drive or self motivation, this is where the teacher has to step in to make sure that NO CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND. |
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oyinda. (f)
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the students are great because there is a lot of competition to get into the universities. You have to be a really brilliant student to get in unlike the US where higher ed. is available to all.
@ davidif, we can criticize the US all we want (and i'm guilty of it too) but better to have 90% of your citizen being at least averagely educated. than have only 10% of your citizen being super educated and the rest wallowing in illiteracy (with the irony that the few ultra bright 10% are moving to the US to find jobs).
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Sagamite (m)
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the students are great because there is a lot of competition to get into the universities. You have to be a really brilliant student to get in unlike the US where higher ed. is available to all.
@ davidif, we can criticize the US all we want (and i'm guilty of it too) but better to have 90% of your citizen being at least averagely educated. than have only 10% of your citizen being super educated and the rest wallowing in illiteracy (with the irony that the few ultra bright 10% are moving to the US to find jobs).
It depends on what you define as "averagely educated". The latter might be better. |
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oyinda. (f)
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i said "at least averagely educated" meaning i used averagely as an understatement.
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Sagamite (m)
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What is your definition of "average education"?
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oyinda. (f)
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well it's all relative to be honest.
for example, almost 30% americans have college degree
in china, only 6% have college degree
so i will say although there are some extremely smart chinese in the US, they are not the best representation of what u will see when you move to china.
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Sagamite (m)
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well it's all relative to be honest.
for example, almost 30% americans have college degree
in china, only 6% have college degree
so i will say although there are some extremely smart chinese in the US, they are not the best representation of what u will see when you move to china.
I agree with you if you think that having about 30% being university graduates. I was a bit worried about your 90% figure earlier. Although it might be nice and sound all fluffy and warm to have 100% of people go to university, it is uselessly inappropraite. Evident from the Tony Blair concept rubbish of trying to get 50% of youth to go to university. Basically virtually all economies can not accommodate this much graduates and once they are graduates, their expectations rise and they will not be willing to settle for some kind of roles that society needs. 30% is about right for the population (depending on the country though), accompanied with the provision of professional and management courses for adults that did not go to university but find themselves climbing the career ladder (or want to) and needing to improve capability. In my view, above 90% should have a minimum of the equivalent Nigerian JSS education and about 80% should finish the SSS equivalent. Good governance would align the skills and education of the populace to the economic needs and accommodation of the country at present and based on future projections. The challenge for government is to ensure this is based mostly on merit so the best brains are harnessed and that those that are not grads can live a worthy and dignified life in whatever profession they enter. |
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oyinda. (f)
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my earlier example was exagerrated to make a point. i guess you didn't get the point. i'm comparing US education with that of the other countries you guys were claiming to be "better" just from immigrants/ international students' performance. the statistic i posted is on total american adults. it's just an aggregate of adults (total % is lower for older adults and higher for younger adults and all these combined is what yields the 30% result). the real percentage of students with college education in this century is way higher than 30%. students in the US for example are going to college in unprecedented rates even making college degrees seem worthless. lol i kid. while the percentage from adults who went to college in the 70s will be lower than 30%. i just gave an average. so that 50% target u mentioned is not unrealistic at all in the western world. my guess is even that US have achieved that 50% for matriculation. it will be unrealistic for a country like nigeria though.
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Sagamite (m)
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Even 90% is realistic. I never said it was not realistic, I said it was inappropraite.
The thing is that you have 50% that are graduates but do not have enough graduates positions for them to fill. You end up with people with high expectations and self-worth and when things don't go their way, they end up being frustrated and miserable.
On the other hand, you have wasted alot of resources sending them to university. Money you could have used to develop vocational training that is essential for some career lines in any economy.
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oyinda. (f)
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Even 90% is realistic. I never said it was not realistic, I said it was inappropraite.
The thing is that you have 50% that are graduates but do not have enough graduates positions for them to fill. You end up with people with high expectations and self-worth and when things don't go their way, they end up being frustrated and miserable.
On the other hand, you have wasted alot of resources sending them to university. Money you could have used to develop vocational training that is essential for some career lines in any economy.
see this is another misconception a lot of people have about education. they see it ONLY as a way to get a better job. I personally think that education is good for personal growth and well being in general for the person and for the country. not just for a salary. I don't think the US is stupid to do things the way they do. ie funding education. we could tear down all the academic institutions in the US and replace them with vocational training schools. we are only going to become one of those other third world countries that can be bossed around by the better educated countries. you underestimate the power of all round education. and those are the things that give power to a society. having the power to be able to write about other people and therefore define how everyone else sees them, create their maps, government, do u think all these are learned just through vocational school? I personally think it's a good thing that more and more education is required for people to get common jobs in the US and in the world in general. and the definition of "graduate position" that you talk about is changing. i don't think it's a waste of resource at all. In fact, it is a very advantageous thing. years ago, i'm sure only a few years of education were required to become a doctor or what have u, now that has changed. but the health care system is way better and the professionals are more knowledgeable as a result. so what you mean by "graduate position" differs by country IMO. US have higher standard. i see it more as a positive than as a negative. to sum it up, i don't think the educated americans are frustrated and miserable because they got college education and have to get their masters to get the jobs their parents got from just college degree, or jobs that their grand parents got from just HS degree. (the only thing that will frustrate graduates is this recession we have now. and it definitely didn't happen result of more ppl going to colleges) i mean the govt isn't forcing them to do these things. you can go to vocational school if u want but most choose to go to colleges and graduate schools cause they know it's better for them. better for the US too to have all round educated citizens. and no 90% is not realistic. govt will have to make higher ed mandatory and free for that to happen. lol |
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Sagamite (m)
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It is not only through education you can get personal growth, with the right structure and processes, other areas can provide personal growth.
Be it Military, Vocational colleges, Corporate training etc.
You get global power by having the "desired resources", manage your economy efficiently (includes sufficiently educated and skilled [includes vocational] populace) and managing relationships. Not by just churning out graduates.
Americans can have the biggest economy and most educated populace (for argument sake) they are still not a happy nation in general. And no it is not a good thing for people to need degrees to get common jobs, it is a good thing to just be skilled at the job.
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oyinda. (f)
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You get global power by having the "desired resources", manage your economy efficiently (includes sufficiently educated and skilled [includes vocational] populace) and managing relationships. Not by just churning out graduates.
Americans can have the biggest economy and most educated populace (for argument sake) they are still not a happy nation in general. And no it is not a good thing for people to need degrees to get common jobs, it is a good thing to just be skilled at the job.
what are these desired resources? and you keep emphasizing education as a means to get a graduate degree rather than as a process of becoming more skilled at a specialization. I think it's the nigerian mentality that school is to get a paper degree rather than a place to learn skills. basically students in nigerian schools don't learn anything? the idea that you don't get skills from going to school? and also the kind of skills you seem to be conveying are blue collar skills (ex. u learn in mechanic shop) rather than white collar ones (ex. you learn in academic institutions). tell me which one yields more power and influence in society and which one most people aim to attain even if not all have the opportunity and priviledge to (one of the reasons US attracts foreign students in the first place). China for example, thousands of students compete to the point of exhaustion for just few spots at the Universities. Those are the kinds of forces behind why the students are so "smart" it's competition for them. you can see the good in this. obviously they're "pushed" to study hard and be smarter. but there is also the negative - not much opportunities for advancement etc. I'll pick the US system over the chinese one in that aspect. happiness is a very subjective term. i mean if other countries are so happy, why are they the ones flocking to the sad US? shouldn't it be vice versa? And no it is not a good thing for people to need degrees to get common jobs, it is a good thing to just be skilled at the job. well if u need degrees to get common jobs, the standards for that job become raised. that is definitely not a bad thing. |
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oyinda. (f)
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even in the millitary, the crop of the ranks are graduates from Westpoint and USNA etc these are some of the best schools in the world. westpoint -(the millitary academy) is one of the most selective in the US and it is very rigorous as well as academic. very good for engineering, geography, history and academic subjects that are extremely useful applicable to the millitary. so millitary involves a lot of education too. esp for the higher ranks.
people who have the means and whatnot will rather go to westpoint where they learn to be leaders than the local US national guard where they learn to be regular war front soldiers/ just carrying guns and ropes lol
so i think we need to think of skill in a broader term rather than just ability to nail wood to a furniture.
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Sagamite (m)
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You need some people to be only able to, and some people can only, nail wood to furniture.
Those that are not in Westpoint can develop other skills, it is not right and necessary for all to go to Westpoint.
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agathamari (f)
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eastern educated children have been considered at an advantage for a long time. in eastern society children are generaly taught things at younger ages then in western society. things are beging to change though. some countries are adopting this while others are falling further behind. there was an article in the paper about how in england parents are waiting till thier children enter preschool to teach basic things like talking and toilet training while in the us and canada you can find parents teaching children how to use sign language and even how to read before they can talk. grouping eastern countries together or western countries together is improper. there are very distinct differences in each though they do have many similarities. y'all bitch when compared to like kenya or the congo so why would it be differnt grouping sweeden and romania? china and indonesia?
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davidif (m)
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the students are great because there is a lot of competition to get into the universities. You have to be a really brilliant student to get in unlike the US where higher ed. is available to all.
@ davidif, we can criticize the US all we want (and i'm guilty of it too) but better to have 90% of your citizen being at least averagely educated. than have only 10% of your citizen being super educated and the rest wallowing in illiteracy (with the irony that the few ultra bright 10% are moving to the US to find jobs).
Oyinda, when university education is available to all, it improves the standard of living of the populace. Its not a co-incidence that the Scandinavians have the highest standard of living in the World (America is 11th on that ranking) even though there universities are not as good as American universities. |
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oyinda. (f)
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Oyinda, when university education is available to all, it improves the standard of living of the populace. Its not a co-incidence that the Scandinavians have the highest standard of living in the World (America is 11th on that ranking) even though there universities are not as good as American universities.
yeah that's the point i was trying to make. it's not about which is the best but how many people benefit from it. better to have 30 states schools to graduate 1 million people than have 2 harvards to graduate only 6000 people. education is not just for getting jobs it's good for the overall quality of life and good for the country too. US compared to most asian countries have more college educated citizens and it's easier to get education here than in Asian countries. but compared to scandinavia, university education is probably too expensive to be available to all though. but they still try better than most other countries with subsidizing it etc. is college free for all in scandinavia? how do they fund that? |
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davidif (m)
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is college free for all in scandinavia? how do they fund that? With incredibly high taxes. There income tax rate is in the 40's (40%). yeah that's the point i was trying to make.
it's not about which is the best but how many people benefit from it. better to have 30 states schools to graduate 1 million people than have 2 harvards to graduate only 6000 people.
education is not just for getting jobs it's good for the overall quality of life and good for the country too.
US compared to most asian countries have more college educated citizens and it's easier to get education here than in Asian countries.
but compared to scandinavia, university education is probably too expensive to be available to all though. but they still try better than most other countries with subsidizing it etc. You are right, what's the point of having several harvard's when only the elites or less than 2% of your population have access to it. But on the other hand, in Europe, after junior secondary school, kids are split into two groups: those that would go into higher institutions of learning and those who would go into vocational work (blue collar) which is very sad and to me VERY VERY WRONG. Its like in naija, where in some schools, after junior secondary school, kids are designated to Arts class or science class or social sciences, which is a very very immoral thing to me. This neglects the facts that some children are slow learners and late bloomers and could go on to "conquer the world" in the fields of science and technology, but now they are in "Agric. economy". Here in yanki, YOU DETERMINE YOUR OWN FUTURE. |
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Sagamite (m)
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Oyinda, when university education is available to all, it improves the standard of living of the populace. Its not a co-incidence that the Scandinavians have the highest standard of living in the World (America is 11th on that ranking) even though there universities are not as good as American universities.
I hope you realise other factors play a part in the standard of living outcome. Russia and Poland have similar proportion of people going to university as the top Scandinavian countries, and the two have far more than Germany (abysmal at less than 35%), France and Italy, and yet that has not improved their standard of living. Even Hungary and Portugal have a higher proportion than Germany and Italy but yet there standard of living is way poorer. Germans even have better standard of living than the UK with almost double the proportion of people that go to university. So there are definitely other factors in play in regards to standard of living. |
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oyinda. (f)
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yeah i'm sure there are other factors that contribute to the well being of a country but education plays a big part. and also the effect is not immediate it can take a generation or more to see it. I mean if u graduate tons of medical students this year, it will take a while to start seeing the effects (decline in mortality rates, vaccine development etc). or if you graduate tons of geography students it can take a while to start seeing the benefits inform of tools that make lets say city planning for example, easier and more efficient. but there is no contest that the benefits are there and that they are substantial for the country.
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Sagamite (m)
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yeah i'm sure there are other factors that contribute to the well being of a country but education plays a big part. and also the effect is not immediate it can take a generation or more to see it. I mean if u graduate tons of medical students this year, it will take a while to start seeing the effects (decline in mortality rates, vaccine development etc). or if you graduate tons of geography students it can take a while to start seeing the benefits inform of tools that make lets say city planning for example, easier and more efficient. but there is no contest that the benefits are there and that they are substantial for the country.
Well, I am not saying education does not play a big part (instant or delayed). What I am saying is that simply using it solely based on correlation of proportion of educated population and high standard of living has a wombly experiential evidence to back it up. |
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oyinda. (f)
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yeah i do agree with u that there are other factors that play a big role. even more than education sef. and they are all related really. countries with better health systems, less crime are more likely to have a better education system etc.
so i do agree with u on that
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