Olusola Aladejebi wrote:

How pathetic, how disastrous if having walked 8km into the Sahara, I find out that the bottles in my backpack contain oil rather than water! I’ll most certainly be filled with despair. I have reflected deeply the role of higher education (especially in Nigeria). I have also read views of profound thinkers across the globe on the role of the universities. I therefore conclude that many are pursuing an education of illusion. The picture of my hypothetical foray into the desert is an apt metaphor for the reality ahead of some people.

Education, be it basic, secondary or tertiary, is aimed at learning. Impartation of relevant knowledge is, or ought to be, the most fundamental objective of any school system. To the degree it deviates from this objective, it is to that degree that the school system loses relevance. A test for any educational system is: if all students and parents are made to understand that no certificates will be given at the expiration of the course of study, how many students will remain? I dare say less than 20%.

There is clearly an undue value placed on higher education, especially postgraduate study, at the expense of acquiring useful, creative knowledge. ‘Will you do masters’ has now been replaced by ‘when will you go for your masters?’ Such talk only fuels the rabid desire for an unthinking master’s degree. There exists this spurious idea that with a master’s in hand the gates of success will open to you more quickly than when you hadn’t. Holders of such idea do not yet know that the gates of success open to the man or woman with relevant knowledge and skill regardless of where he got them or where he did not. It is noteworthy that one of the most important ‘exports’ of U. K to Nigeria is now the Master’s Degree. All over the web space you find advertisements for university upon university. They seem to understand that we place an inordinate value on a 2nd Degree. In a declining European economy they cash in quickly on our thinking handicap.

Time published in 2010 the list of the most successful college drop outs. Some on the list include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg, Frank Lloyd Wright and James Cameron. Dropping out of college to pursue a passion and create value is not a recent phenomenon. Frank Lloyd Wright for instance dropped out of University of Wisconsin—Madison in 1886! to become America’s most celebrated Architect.

Gone are the days when the universities held the only key to knowledge. The information revolution has now provided access to knowledge on anything through the internet.

My point is not whether people drop out of university or whether they continue to post graduate study. Any idiot can drop out of school as well as any idiot can finish school. If your unique contribution will be realized by an extended stay in the university, please stay on. But never just continue to gather certificates as if they are ends in themselves. Delete the mind-set: now that I have this certificate, I can now be successful. Rather the mind-set should be: now that I have detected the unique contribution I will make in this life, I will seek relevant knowledge that will help in this quest.

In closing, Peter Thiel, an entrepreneur and billionaire, expressed the view that, ‘although higher education is definitely useful for some career paths (medicine, engineering, etc.) and people learn very valuable things in the university, there are many career paths, such as entrepreneurship, for which higher education is not useful and simply leads them to waste years they may have been doing something more productive’. I am convinced that the most creative among us will never be the ideal university student. They will find school uncomfortable for their ideas. They may find lecturers speaking a different language from the one in their hearts. Three things may happen to these most gifted ones. Some may try hard to finish schooling while keeping the fire of their new creative ideas burning. Some may detect that their continued stay in the university will drown that pure, fresh creativity growing in the hearts and hence escape for their lives! (Those on the TIME’s list above obviously thought so)Some others unfortunately because they didn’t develop the courage to step out allowed the old stuff to kill their unique creativity. Sometimes to think outside the box, you have to step outside the box (university).

Even if you are not one of the most gifted among us, you should not have the illusion that unless the university certifies you, there can be no excellence for you!

This is apt