Here are 5 Reasons why Academic certificates are no longer relevant in today's world...

Reason #1:
WE ARE LIVING IN A CHANGING WORLD...
In the Industrial and Information Age, where higher institution certificates were of immense value, people who possess such certificates were offered jobs before everyone else, and because jobs bring money, school certificates were considered as assets in those days. It was very safe in those days to sell a land or obtain a loan to sponsor yourself in higher institutions (especially if you are brilliant), because before you even graduate, good jobs are waiting for you. But in the space of a few years, our world moves faster away from those ages, and into a new, but scarcely known age called Creativity Age. While in those ages, people who made money were those who had good job gotten through their school certificates, now in the creativity age, if you look around your environment, majority of the people who made good money are those who create and add value to the society. Though jobs are scarce, I am not saying that people don't get jobs anymore. But firstly, the fact is that while a school CERTIFIED young person in Africa is working or looking for a job, a non certified but CREATIVE young person in Asia is busy creating a robot or machine that will soon take over the job an African is either doing or looking for. This is the hallmark of the creativity age which our schools don't prepare us for. Secondly, most CERTIFIED people today aren't qualified for the few existing jobs they are looking for just because today's Employers require more than just a certificate. Recently, an interview was conducted by IBM for over 1500 CEO's around the world demanding to know what they require as the most important skill from their prospective employees in this modern times. Amazingly, they all gave the same answer- CREATIVITY. This as we all know isn't taught in school. If you attend any job interview, you'll find out that they won't ask you any question that is based on what you were taught in school, rather they ask you questions that reveals your creativity. Without much doubt, many CERTIFIED people are brilliant and intelligent, but the world is moving fast beyond them. Only smart and creative people can catch up with the pace of today's world. Today, the few CERTIFIED people that still manage to get jobs didn't get it because of their certificates, they only get those jobs because the employer found in them certain natural skills and abilities that will maximize their performance on the job. But if the certificate you spend so much time, effort and money to acquire is no longer valued by global CEO's, and no longer sufficient to give you a good job, then what is the relevance of it?

Reason #2:
ACADEMICS IS DIFFERENT FROM EDUCATION...
Let's ponder on this question: How do people acquire certificates nowadays? Is it by getting EDUCATION? No. It's by getting through the ACADEMIC process.
Most people address those with higher school certificates as 'educated' people but in many cases, they are wrong. This is because you can have a certificate without being educated. You can also be educated without having a certificate.
Academics at its best, may aid education but it alone is not education.
Education means developing your inner attributes to create solutions to the challenges of life; Academics means a formalized and systematic approach to learning...
Just as the key words, formalized and systematic sounds, most of the things we learn in school(through academics) are formalities, that's why we forget them the moment we leave school or even exams hall. We also learn in an imperfect system that we can't change or control.
Education is open to all, but academics is only open to those in schools...
Education is what remains in you when you have forgotten all what you learned in school.
Education reward people with success; Academics reward people with papers(certificates).
Education has an unknown beginning and possibly, no end; Academics begins in the Industrial Age, with a goal to produce a reliable workforce for the Industrial Revolution. But a system designed to produce the workers of a few centuries ago can no longer be adequate to meet the needs and challenges of today's world.
The knowledge obtained from schools are based on theories of people who died about 2 centuries ago and thus, it is expired knowledge that people are certified for having. This makes both the knowledge and the certificate almost useless to those who possess them in this 21st century Creativity Age. Even the methods of teaching in schools are considered the worst and lowest in the hierarchy of learning methods shown in the CONE OF LEARNING.
Though academics may still provide you with a few opportunities, whether you'll grab the opportunities or not will depend on your education.
Even though academics is considered as a part of education, the methods, formalities and faulty systems available in schools render people with only academic knowledge and certificates helpless and incapable to find solutions to the modern challenges of life... This is because academics reward those who follow the rules but life reward those who break old rules and set new ones. Education is still the key to success and development, but not the kind obtained from school. Maybe academics on its own was once a key, but that was in the past. Now the padlock has been changed, so having academic knowledge and certificates as key will lead you to frustration because the padlock won't open. If your certificate and the knowledge that comes with it can't help you to succeed in life, then of what relevance is it?

Reason #3:
SUCCESS DOESN'T REQUIRE CERTIFICATES...
As difficult as this may sound, the fact is that many of the most successful people the world has ever known never graduate from any school or possess certificates from any school of higher learning. I was extremely shocked when I saw the names of the top 50 successful people in the world that never graduate from any school. The list comprises 6 former American Presidents including Abraham Lincoln and two former British prime ministers including Winston Churchill. Other notable names in the list were Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, John D Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Pastor T D Jakes and Mark Zuckerberg. The big question is: Was any of these people unsuccessful or uneducated? A few of them entered higher institutions and dropped out. Notable among the drop outs were Thomas Edison, Mark Twain and Bill Gates. When asked why he dropped out of school, hear what Mark Twain said "I do not want schooling to interfere with my education". Thomas Edison was continuously criticised by his school teachers for being too dull to learn in school. But he withdrew from school and became one of the greatest scientists and entrepreneurs the world has ever seen. This shows that he wasn't dull to learn outside school. I think Bill Gates wouldn't have been where he is today if he didn't withdrew from school. I also think Thomas Edison wouldn't have invented electric bulb and become the founder of General Electric if he had completed school. Why am I saying this? Let's face this fact:
Every individual is born with untapped potentials and raw talents that school doesn't help us to discover or develop. When people enter school, they forget the endowments which God deposited in them and focus more on the learning methods available in schools and the certificates that comes therewith. Many people can't succeed in life because the genius in them has been crushed by the wrong methods of learning in school.
Man is only a container, what he learned is the content. The school focus on loading you with unnecessary contents forgetting that the nature and quality of the container should determine its content. Knowing fully well that the contents the school were loading him with didn't match his container, Mark Twain withdrew from school and made the statement above.
The mismatch between what we learn in school and what is required for success in life has created a big gap between schooling and success and the only way to bridge this gap and become successful is to focus less on school certificates and pay more attention to developing our inner endowments. This is best achieved outside school, that is why many of the world's most successful people didn't attend or complete school.
Another fact: In 2014, 33% of those in the Forbes list of 400 wealthiest people in the world either didn't start college or were drop outs. But the amazing part is that the combined net worth of those 33% was $4.8billion while the combined net worth of the remaining 67% that completed school was a meagre $1.5billion. The school drop outs were financially more successful than the school graduates.

Reason #4:
COLLEGE EDUCATION GETS MORE EXPENSIVE WHILE CERTIFICATES GET LESS VALUABLE...

In the midst of the global economic crisis that rocked our world, prices of almost everything are falling while the price of college education keeps escalating.
Nigeria is still regarded as a developing country, hence, I will like to use a developed country like United States as a case study:
Between 2006 to 2007, the price of college education in US rise by 4.6%. Between 2007 - 2008, college tuition increased by 5.9%. Between 2008- 2009, college tuition increased by 6.2%. This rate of increase has continued till today. The case is not different in many other countries of the world including Nigeria. But what is the value of a college certificate?
Unemployment rate has been increasing in many countries around the world, there's no doubt about this. But to a few who got jobs with their certificates, how much is their starting salary?
Again using US as a case study, between 2006 - 2007, the basic starting salary for a college graduate in America was $30 000. But between 2009 to 2011, it falls to $27000. This rate of fall had continued steadily till now. And people are beginning to argue that the Return on investment(ROI) on a college education is not worth the investment. I agree with them because even if this is not the case now, with the way things are going, it will soon be.

Reason #5:
CERTIFICATE INFLATION...
The word inflation means the rise in the quantity of products that leads to a fall in its value and price.
Certificate inflation means a rise in the number of people carrying certificates around, leading to a fall in the value of certificates. This has been the situation in the world, especially here in Nigeria.
A 2015 survey conducted by UNESCO reveals that 65 million Nigerians are still illiterates. 10 million children are out of school and about 35 million adults are uneducated. But despite this disturbing statistics, Nigerian Higher institutions churned out 591097 graduates in 2005 alone. In 2007, the number of graduates escalate to 754100. In 2012, the number rises to around a million. And in 2017, our schools has churned out close to 1.5 million graduates.
This trend will certainly continue until school certificates lost all its remaining value and become completely useless.
Going for higher degrees like masters isn't a solution to this disturbing trend because if the world now requires Yam instead of cassava, trying to upgrade the quality of your cassava won't make it sell. Employers now look beyond certificates during job recruitment so upgrading your certificate isn't really the best solution to the redundancy of our certificates.

I did not read to the end but I have to conclude you are right

Ever8054:
I did not read to the end but I have to conclude you are right

Pls try and read it to the end. You'll surely learn a few things. I didn't post this to receive praise, I posted it so that people can learn.

Fact .. If I have all my tuition fees by now, I wouldn't work for anybody. Certificates are losing its value.

Adeyemi0:
Fact .. If I have all my tuition fees by now, I wouldn't work for anybody. Certificates are losing its value.

Well said...

You will not be taught will happen tommorow in school - Henry ford

Certificate, academics just a glorified piece of papers. Most are not practical just talk. A lot of research papers are just inapplicable as they are published to gain promotion and not the "contribution to knowledge " as its widely known

My second degree is their in my bag

Our mind set must be changed to present day reality not dreams that are a mirage