greenprince:


What are your strategies?
Do you have small daily tasks one can accomplish easily on the go?
Please share, thanks.

The key factor to sustain lifestyle of self-development is discipline,no one has ever accomplished a task successfully and timely without discipline.Be disciplined in your time management because every task is accomplished within a timeline.Draw up your daily itinerary or 'to do list' sometimes it is difficult to follow to the letter but your strict adherence to your rules on discipline will guide you.I have developed a habit of learning something new by studying and listening to people that matter and warding off unnecessary distractions by asking myself some questions before engaging in a particular task or activity,What am I standing to benefit if I should do this now?Am I going to add value to people or people add value to me?Will it make me happy in the end?For instance,I have engaged in resarch to partly help a friend with her masters thesis knowing that it was an opportunity to learn more since it was outside the confines of my field.I have also helped friends in drafting proposals and by so doing I gained more knowledge each time I did.

Suelove:


The post is really nice. However, this is one of the issues he pointed at (unnecessary abbreviation). In the same Urban Dictionary where shud stands for should, it also means shut up.

I believe we can still educate ourselves even if the university system fails. In addition, I believe in God but the statement "God should help us" has been overused. It seems we are just too lazy to leave our comfort zone.

Lastly, I believe we can make good use of social media to develop our writing skill.

Please, don't be offended.

Anti, ahn ahn.. This one na just online stuff na.


Anyway thanks

Mind if we share contacts??

klever18:
Gun can end terror but education can end terrosim

You are right.

olisasegun:
The Interview


2. Candidates that went to private universities performed better generally. There must be something the private universities are getting right as their graduates communicated better. They demonstrated a far more superior level of intelligence. I was disappointed by the performance of most graduates of mainstream universities and polytechnics. One could almost guess whether a candidate attended a private university just by listening to them.

By Makinde CI 77 set

I'm happy that you noted this. As an alumnus of a private university, we get told of by public university alumni that we went to elevated secondary schools. But time and time again I always ask, if living in a "cloistered" environment made one less educated than them. Private university leaves one with some time of self-belief that is absent in public universities. Life does not have to be hard for one to shine. Not saying that public universities don't produce top-notch grads (shout out to all FUTO grads especially the engineering grads) but private unis produce grads that are more employable. Attitude man. Attitude

[quote author=Laid2001 post=78897265]I would have allowed this to pass as a commentary on the general state of our education, but for the second item on the write-up.

The op stated that the graduates from private universities are better than those from the federal universities. I beg to disagree. While, there has been a general degradation in our educational system in Nigeria, I still maintained that the Federal Universities are by far better than the private ones in Nigeria of today.

This may be because of my area and industry as a whole but my experience is at complete variance with what the op said. I do sit on the interview panel for my company once in a while, as a technical assessor for engineering recruits, but that is not the only source of my assertion.

I am a member of the society of petroleum engineers and we have two major competitions, the PETROBOWL and PETROQUIZ that we organize for the various universities in Nigeria. The winner in Nigeria normally goes ahead to represent Nigeria at the international competition normally during the ATCE outside Nigeria (mostly in US).

The competition has always been won by Federal Universities, in fact Uniben has won the international competition before and that was the only time a Nigerian university won it.


We also use to assess the petroleum engineering departments of universities in Nigeria and I can tell you that the private universities have a long way to go to catch up with the Federal ones.


Now, that leaves the state owned universities in between. Many are useless and are just universities in name and a few are good.


Yet, no Nigerian University is where they are meant to be in the comity of schools on the world stage.



In your own field, the Petroleum/oil sector, it will be unfair to compare any private uni with even PTI Effurun not to talk of UNIBEN.
But, I doubt it if we can say the same about computer science and especially the social sciences.
The fact remains that, we tend to under-rate the private unis (who are indeed making giant stride) while forgetting that some of the fed. uniis are only basking in old glory.

The last time I check, Redeemers uni came to the rescue of Nigeria during the Ebola saga.

Suelove:


The post is really nice. However, this is one of the issues he pointed at (unnecessary abbreviation). In the same Urban Dictionary where shud stands for should, it also means shut up.

I believe we can still educate ourselves even if the university system fails. In addition, I believe in God but the statement "God should help us" has been overused. It seems we are just too lazy to leave our comfort zone.

Lastly, I believe we can make good use of social media to develop our writing skill.

Please, don't be offended.

Thanks but this is just a social stuff

Mind if we exchange contacts

Great write-up! Very analytical & on point! I think the problem is from the elementary foundation. If one has a solid primary & secondary educational foundation, it gives one a strong edge over others. The university/polytechnic won't teach u basic writing skills or basic /proper sentence constructions,this is done only in primary & post primary schools. As a matter of intervention, our educational sector needs a thorough overhaul.

olisasegun:
The Interview

Each time I conduct interviews, I usually end up shaking my head and lamenting about the state of education in Nigeria. Our tertiary institutions are churning out graduates who are mainly unemployable. Earlier today, I interviewed almost 50 candidates and by the end of the whole session, the only conclusion I could arrive at was that we have a BIG problem.

In one particular instance, I was alarmed when I read the CV of a particular female graduate of one of the Universities in the South West. It was full of outlandish errors and so I asked her to spell a few words. She spelt the word 'redeemed' wrongly four times before she got it right the fifth time. On her CV, she described herself as one of the officials of the church fellowship when she was an undergraduate but she wrote the name of the church wrongly. She couldn't spell the word 'corper' despite trying more than five times. Yet, during her national service, she taught pupils at a school. I underlined about 10 grammatical errors on her CV and showed them to her. She couldn't even determine where to use apostrophe s.

A particular candidate couldn't speak a whole sentence without committing serious blunders. Even when I repeated those errors while thinking he would correct himself, he repeated the blunders again. Another candidate found it difficult explaining what he studied in school. Some have not developed themselves in any way since they graduated. I had to spend some time to talk to a lady who had her Ordinary National Diploma fifteen years ago but had not done anything to improve herself since then. When she mentioned the issue of paucity of funds, I pointed at her designer bag and her well braided hair as evidence that fund was not the problem.

I asked a female candidate what her aspirations were if money was not a restraining factor. Her answer left all of us on the interview panel with mouths wide open. "I want to live large and live big", she told us. One of the candidates told us he studied 'BSc Economics'. He made the mistake thrice until I corrected him that he studied Economics and not BSc Economics. A fellow was asked to introduce himself and he started with 'My names are...'. I asked him how many people he's introducing. Even when I tried to correct him, he insisted he was correct so I gave up on him.

On one occasion, I asked a female candidate what her husband does. She replied, 'I'm sorry but he's a driver'. I asked her why she was sorry about the legitimate job that her husband does. I told her that the job of her husband does not define who he is. His job is simply a job. I told her I also drove a cab before. I spent the longest time with her as I wanted her mind to be disinfected of the low self-esteem she seemed to carry. I played the video of Femi Ogedengbe, the Nollywood actor turned security guard in the United States and encouraged her to be proud of her husband. Interestingly, the husband is a graduate and I've asked her to give me her husband's CV. She almost broke down in tears when I told her I'd rather hire her husband than her. She knelt and apologized before she left my office.

A few guys had the labels of their suit on their sleeves- at least three of them that I recall. When I asked why the labels were not removed, they grinned sheepishly. One of them told me that is the current trend. When that same guy sat down, I observed that he wore ankle socks with a significant part of his legs showing bare skin. One candidate was particularly striking for his naivety. He came in shaking and stammered while introducing himself. He could barely string a sentence together. When I tried to make him comfortable by asking him to take a deep breath, he answered by saying, "I don't know why I'm like this today. This is actually my first interview". He just finished his national service and anxiety was written all over him.

I made two major observations during the interview session today:

1. Candidates who engaged in extracurricular activities while in school turned out better. There was a lady who was a member of SIFE- Students In Free Enterprise- while she was on campus and she was one of the bright spots. There was another fellow that represented his University at a competition outside Nigeria. He was also outstanding. Likewise, a lady who was Vice President of her Students Union while she was an undergraduate. She demonstrated so much confidence during the interview.

2. Candidates that went to private universities performed better generally. There must be something the private universities are getting right as their graduates communicated better. They demonstrated a far more superior level of intelligence. I was disappointed by the performance of most graduates of mainstream universities and polytechnics. One could almost guess whether a candidate attended a private university just by listening to them.

If you're preparing for an interview, it's in your best interest to do some research about the company you want to work with if you know the company. Google is your friend. Work on your communication skills. You should be able to talk about yourself very clearly and also describe what you have done before-if you're an experienced hire. Your body language is critical- no fidgeting and no show of anxiety. All of us have butterflies in our stomach when we face strange people on an interview panel but with a smile on your face, no one will ever know. A lady cracked her knuckles throughout the interview today. It's very irritating but also shows she was nervous. Your posture is important. Dont slouch on the chair. Sit straight with your back on the chair and your legs together.

Mind your language while being interviewed. It's better to be brief than to be unnecessarily verbose. By talking too much at times, you demonstrate that you know so little. Pronounce words well. It can take some practice but stand in front of a mirror and rehearse until you get better. Be ready to defend your certificate. Demonstrate that you actually earned your degree. Maintain eye contacts. That shows your level of confidence. Good grooming is key to your success. No matter the current fad, it's safer to be conservative in your dressing. Dark coloured suits are best for interviews. Stay with white or blue shirts for men. You can never go wrong with them. You must have a great sense of colour to want to try very bright colours. It's either it turns out so good or you turn out like a magician's apprentice. Ladies have the latitude to try out more colours but the simpler, the better. Pay attention to your hair and hand bag. Synchronize your colours properly. Avoid loud jewelleries. Look your best as the book is often judged by the cover during interviews. Your appearance is what we see first before we hear what you have to say.

We need to declare a state of emergency in our education sector and even start to teach intending graduates certain life skills. Nigerian graduates will not be able to compete with their African counterparts in a few years at this rate.

By Makinde CI 77 set

olisasegun:


Well, I hope so.
It's unfortunate that something this important don't trend online like celebrities, snake, nudity and sex related headlines.

God helps us all.

Tonto dike and Reginald Daniels inclusive

I hope it's going to turn to the Oyo State of Our dream, promise is not new, we need action sir !!!

Laid2001:
I would have allowed this to pass as a commentary on the general state of our education, but for the second item on the write-up.

The op stated that the graduates from private universities are better than those from the federal universities. I beg to disagree. While, there has been a general degradation in our educational system in Nigeria, I still maintained that the Federal Universities are by far better than the private ones in Nigeria of today.

This may be because of my area and industry as a whole but my experience is at complete variance with what the op said. I do sit on the interview panel for my company once in a while, as a technical assessor for engineering recruits, but that is not the only source of my assertion.

I am a member of the society of petroleum engineers and we have two major competitions, the PETROBOWL and PETROQUIZ that we organize for the various universities in Nigeria. The winner in Nigeria normally goes ahead to represent Nigeria at the international competition normally during the ATCE outside Nigeria (mostly in US).




The competition has always been won by Federal Universities, in fact Uniben has won the international competition before and that was the only time a Nigerian university won it.


We also use to assess the petroleum engineering departments of universities in Nigeria and I can tell you that the private universities have a long way to go to catch up with the Federal ones.


Now, that leaves the state owned universities in between. Many are useless and are just universities in name and a few are good.


Yet, no Nigerian University is where they are meant to be in the comity of schools on the world stage.

In your own field, the Petroleum/oil sector, it will be unfair to compare any private uni with even PTI Effurun not to talk of UNIBEN.
But, I doubt it if we can say the same about computer science and especially the social sciences.
The fact remains that, we tend to under-rate the private unis (who are indeed making giant stride) while forgetting that some of the fed. uniis are only basking in old glory.

The last time I check, Redeemers uni came to the rescue of Nigeria during the Ebola saga.

ppogba:

I

An undergrad of Mathematics was asked to mention the third angle of a triangle after Adjacent and Opposite and she was like.....

Unless my powers of recall are failing me, I believe what you have mentioned are the sides of a (right angled?) triangle. What I remember learning for angles were supplementary angles, vertically opposite angles et al.

But very valid points you raised in other parts of your post

This is one of the best posts I have seen on this forum since joining... I wish more of such would be availed on front page more often.

One major issue here is communication: Verbal and Non-verbal, especially writing and body language. Our educational failure as a nation stems from primary and secondary: How do you explain the fact that most SSCE level graduates of today fall short of all you mentioned? What magic do you want to do in a tertiary education of 3 to 5 years?.

Most undergraduates don't read; same goes for a lot of graduates: The reading culture is at an all-time low... This is what happens when little or no value or reward is placed on academic excellence by society and the nation at large.

Read comments here on this forum, and you will see the decadence we are talking about... Youths that rather watch games, zee-world, African Magic, Porn-Hub, etc, with no regard for CNN, AL-Jazeera, Sit-coms like Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, etc, will continue to fall short.

Wetin you expect from sorting and arrangee degree people. You can see the results in our infrastructure and other societal development.


If you notice, the ones who you said did well due to their extra curricular participation, they did well because they were exposed to people who came with foreign ideas and also their opportunity to interact with other global institutions.


The govt does not put effort in providing constant power supply that will help with development and increase security; so the insecurity and uncomfortability on campuses makes students do other things instead of what they went there for.

airsaylongcon:


Unless my powers of recall are failing me, I believe what you have mentioned are the sides of a (right angled?) triangle. What I remember learning for angles were supplementary angles, vertically opposite angles et al.

But very valid points you raised in other parts of your post

Yes. Right angled triangles.

Opposite, Adjacent and Hypotenus.

The interview itself is over 10 years ago now. It is my son that is learning about the angles now. I need not tell you when last I learnt things like that.
Cheers.

What of those of us that don't like suits, and doesn't have a single suit in our wardrobes, can we wear jeans and long sleeve shirts (while folding the hand)?

this is a sad sorry truth.

Not only our structures bare dilapidating, our quality is by far also undergoing same thing

The major problem is that most students especially now, are rather more interested in the certificate than the course they're studying.
It's not their fault anyways, i blame the system.
A system that would give a student interested in engineering Horticulture to study.

I've said it that if i happen to be at the helm of affairs in this country, there would no more be career discrimination. Industrialization would be the order of the day, and every sector is given as much importance as the white collar jobs.

Why a student will decide to "settle" or sleep with a lecturer for a good grade is still beyond me to comprehend, why throw away an opportunity to acquire knowledge. Because for me this is akin to a situation of being provided with food to nourish yourself and grow but you rather elect someone else to eat the food for you. Furthermore, most students
fail to appreciate the fact that effective communication in English which is our lingua franca is dependent on having a solid grounding of the language. The problem with these students is that they are fond of communicating in slangs and "WhatsApp" English which harm their diction in the long run.

shebina una de find 2.1 only
enjoy

olisasegun:
The Interview

Each time I conduct interviews, I usually end up shaking my head and lamenting about the state of education in Nigeria. Our tertiary institutions are churning out graduates who are mainly unemployable. Earlier today, I interviewed almost 50 candidates and by the end of the whole session, the only conclusion I could arrive at was that we have a BIG problem.

In one particular instance, I was alarmed when I read the CV of a particular female graduate of one of the Universities in the South West. It was full of outlandish errors and so I asked her to spell a few words. She spelt the word 'redeemed' wrongly four times before she got it right the fifth time. On her CV, she described herself as one of the officials of the church fellowship when she was an undergraduate but she wrote the name of the church wrongly. She couldn't spell the word 'corper' despite trying more than five times. Yet, during her national service, she taught pupils at a school. I underlined about 10 grammatical errors on her CV and showed them to her. She couldn't even determine where to use apostrophe s.

A particular candidate couldn't speak a whole sentence without committing serious blunders. Even when I repeated those errors while thinking he would correct himself, he repeated the blunders again. Another candidate found it difficult explaining what he studied in school. Some have not developed themselves in any way since they graduated. I had to spend some time to talk to a lady who had her Ordinary National Diploma fifteen years ago but had not done anything to improve herself since then. When she mentioned the issue of paucity of funds, I pointed at her designer bag and her well braided hair as evidence that fund was not the problem.

I asked a female candidate what her aspirations were if money was not a restraining factor. Her answer left all of us on the interview panel with mouths wide open. "I want to live large and live big", she told us. One of the candidates told us he studied 'BSc Economics'. He made the mistake thrice until I corrected him that he studied Economics and not BSc Economics. A fellow was asked to introduce himself and he started with 'My names are...'. I asked him how many people he's introducing. Even when I tried to correct him, he insisted he was correct so I gave up on him.

On one occasion, I asked a female candidate what her husband does. She replied, 'I'm sorry but he's a driver'. I asked her why she was sorry about the legitimate job that her husband does. I told her that the job of her husband does not define who he is. His job is simply a job. I told her I also drove a cab before. I spent the longest time with her as I wanted her mind to be disinfected of the low self-esteem she seemed to carry. I played the video of Femi Ogedengbe, the Nollywood actor turned security guard in the United States and encouraged her to be proud of her husband. Interestingly, the husband is a graduate and I've asked her to give me her husband's CV. She almost broke down in tears when I told her I'd rather hire her husband than her. She knelt and apologized before she left my office.

A few guys had the labels of their suit on their sleeves- at least three of them that I recall. When I asked why the labels were not removed, they grinned sheepishly. One of them told me that is the current trend. When that same guy sat down, I observed that he wore ankle socks with a significant part of his legs showing bare skin. One candidate was particularly striking for his naivety. He came in shaking and stammered while introducing himself. He could barely string a sentence together. When I tried to make him comfortable by asking him to take a deep breath, he answered by saying, "I don't know why I'm like this today. This is actually my first interview". He just finished his national service and anxiety was written all over him.

I made two major observations during the interview session today:

1. Candidates who engaged in extracurricular activities while in school turned out better. There was a lady who was a member of SIFE- Students In Free Enterprise- while she was on campus and she was one of the bright spots. There was another fellow that represented his University at a competition outside Nigeria. He was also outstanding. Likewise, a lady who was Vice President of her Students Union while she was an undergraduate. She demonstrated so much confidence during the interview.

2. Candidates that went to private universities performed better generally. There must be something the private universities are getting right as their graduates communicated better. They demonstrated a far more superior level of intelligence. I was disappointed by the performance of most graduates of mainstream universities and polytechnics. One could almost guess whether a candidate attended a private university just by listening to them.

If you're preparing for an interview, it's in your best interest to do some research about the company you want to work with if you know the company. Google is your friend. Work on your communication skills. You should be able to talk about yourself very clearly and also describe what you have done before-if you're an experienced hire. Your body language is critical- no fidgeting and no show of anxiety. All of us have butterflies in our stomach when we face strange people on an interview panel but with a smile on your face, no one will ever know. A lady cracked her knuckles throughout the interview today. It's very irritating but also shows she was nervous. Your posture is important. Dont slouch on the chair. Sit straight with your back on the chair and your legs together.

Mind your language while being interviewed. It's better to be brief than to be unnecessarily verbose. By talking too much at times, you demonstrate that you know so little. Pronounce words well. It can take some practice but stand in front of a mirror and rehearse until you get better. Be ready to defend your certificate. Demonstrate that you actually earned your degree. Maintain eye contacts. That shows your level of confidence. Good grooming is key to your success. No matter the current fad, it's safer to be conservative in your dressing. Dark coloured suits are best for interviews. Stay with white or blue shirts for men. You can never go wrong with them. You must have a great sense of colour to want to try very bright colours. It's either it turns out so good or you turn out like a magician's apprentice. Ladies have the latitude to try out more colours but the simpler, the better. Pay attention to your hair and hand bag. Synchronize your colours properly. Avoid loud jewelleries. Look your best as the book is often judged by the cover during interviews. Your appearance is what we see first before we hear what you have to say.

We need to declare a state of emergency in our education sector and even start to teach intending graduates certain life skills. Nigerian graduates will not be able to compete with their African counterparts in a few years at this rate.

By Makinde CI 77 set

private students are from better socioeconomic circumstances

olisasegun:
The Interview

Each time I conduct interviews, I usually end up shaking my head and lamenting about the state of education in Nigeria. Our tertiary institutions are churning out graduates who are mainly unemployable. Earlier today, I interviewed almost 50 candidates and by the end of the whole session, the only conclusion I could arrive at was that we have a BIG problem.

In one particular instance, I was alarmed when I read the CV of a particular female graduate of one of the Universities in the South West. It was full of outlandish errors and so I asked her to spell a few words. She spelt the word 'redeemed' wrongly four times before she got it right the fifth time. On her CV, she described herself as one of the officials of the church fellowship when she was an undergraduate but she wrote the name of the church wrongly. She couldn't spell the word 'corper' despite trying more than five times. Yet, during her national service, she taught pupils at a school. I underlined about 10 grammatical errors on her CV and showed them to her. She couldn't even determine where to use apostrophe s.

A particular candidate couldn't speak a whole sentence without committing serious blunders. Even when I repeated those errors while thinking he would correct himself, he repeated the blunders again. Another candidate found it difficult explaining what he studied in school. Some have not developed themselves in any way since they graduated. I had to spend some time to talk to a lady who had her Ordinary National Diploma fifteen years ago but had not done anything to improve herself since then. When she mentioned the issue of paucity of funds, I pointed at her designer bag and her well braided hair as evidence that fund was not the problem.

I asked a female candidate what her aspirations were if money was not a restraining factor. Her answer left all of us on the interview panel with mouths wide open. "I want to live large and live big", she told us. One of the candidates told us he studied 'BSc Economics'. He made the mistake thrice until I corrected him that he studied Economics and not BSc Economics. A fellow was asked to introduce himself and he started with 'My names are...'. I asked him how many people he's introducing. Even when I tried to correct him, he insisted he was correct so I gave up on him.

On one occasion, I asked a female candidate what her husband does. She replied, 'I'm sorry but he's a driver'. I asked her why she was sorry about the legitimate job that her husband does. I told her that the job of her husband does not define who he is. His job is simply a job. I told her I also drove a cab before. I spent the longest time with her as I wanted her mind to be disinfected of the low self-esteem she seemed to carry. I played the video of Femi Ogedengbe, the Nollywood actor turned security guard in the United States and encouraged her to be proud of her husband. Interestingly, the husband is a graduate and I've asked her to give me her husband's CV. She almost broke down in tears when I told her I'd rather hire her husband than her. She knelt and apologized before she left my office.

A few guys had the labels of their suit on their sleeves- at least three of them that I recall. When I asked why the labels were not removed, they grinned sheepishly. One of them told me that is the current trend. When that same guy sat down, I observed that he wore ankle socks with a significant part of his legs showing bare skin. One candidate was particularly striking for his naivety. He came in shaking and stammered while introducing himself. He could barely string a sentence together. When I tried to make him comfortable by asking him to take a deep breath, he answered by saying, "I don't know why I'm like this today. This is actually my first interview". He just finished his national service and anxiety was written all over him.

I made two major observations during the interview session today:

1. Candidates who engaged in extracurricular activities while in school turned out better. There was a lady who was a member of SIFE- Students In Free Enterprise- while she was on campus and she was one of the bright spots. There was another fellow that represented his University at a competition outside Nigeria. He was also outstanding. Likewise, a lady who was Vice President of her Students Union while she was an undergraduate. She demonstrated so much confidence during the interview.

2. Candidates that went to private universities performed better generally. There must be something the private universities are getting right as their graduates communicated better. They demonstrated a far more superior level of intelligence. I was disappointed by the performance of most graduates of mainstream universities and polytechnics. One could almost guess whether a candidate attended a private university just by listening to them.

If you're preparing for an interview, it's in your best interest to do some research about the company you want to work with if you know the company. Google is your friend. Work on your communication skills. You should be able to talk about yourself very clearly and also describe what you have done before-if you're an experienced hire. Your body language is critical- no fidgeting and no show of anxiety. All of us have butterflies in our stomach when we face strange people on an interview panel but with a smile on your face, no one will ever know. A lady cracked her knuckles throughout the interview today. It's very irritating but also shows she was nervous. Your posture is important. Dont slouch on the chair. Sit straight with your back on the chair and your legs together.

Mind your language while being interviewed. It's better to be brief than to be unnecessarily verbose. By talking too much at times, you demonstrate that you know so little. Pronounce words well. It can take some practice but stand in front of a mirror and rehearse until you get better. Be ready to defend your certificate. Demonstrate that you actually earned your degree. Maintain eye contacts. That shows your level of confidence. Good grooming is key to your success. No matter the current fad, it's safer to be conservative in your dressing. Dark coloured suits are best for interviews. Stay with white or blue shirts for men. You can never go wrong with them. You must have a great sense of colour to want to try very bright colours. It's either it turns out so good or you turn out like a magician's apprentice. Ladies have the latitude to try out more colours but the simpler, the better. Pay attention to your hair and hand bag. Synchronize your colours properly. Avoid loud jewelleries. Look your best as the book is often judged by the cover during interviews. Your appearance is what we see first before we hear what you have to say.

We need to declare a state of emergency in our education sector and even start to teach intending graduates certain life skills. Nigerian graduates will not be able to compete with their African counterparts in a few years at this rate.

By Makinde CI 77 set

Olusholasimon:
I hope it's going to turn to the Oyo State of Our dream, promise is not new, we need action sir !!!

What do you mean ?

This is so spot on!

OP.
The main issue we have here is their PRESENTATION/COMMUNICATION SKILLS.


1. Lack of Presentation in the University: How many seminars, presentation, team building activities is present in our curricula? Very few. I can say during my course of 5 years, i only made presentation once, in my final year and it was a difficult task for me. Not that I wasn't grounded in the subject, but the fear of speaking really made me imbalance for a major part of the presentation. Hence, if you didn't engage in extracurricular activity that involve communication and team work while in school, speaking on such platforms effectively will be herculean for you.

2. Poverty: Rich kids can speak better English. That's why Private Uni graduates can communicate better on the average even though they aren't grounded on the subject. The ample self confidence to speak correctly what they know is sufficient.

ppogba:


The last time I check, Redeemers uni came to the rescue of Nigeria during the Ebola saga.

Please do well to elaborate, I think my power to recall this, is failing me..thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTCMbBJmTRQ

‘Declare state of emergency for Education’

israelmao:
I have been given to self-development daily and it really paying off for me.Never stop learning ,when you stop learning you start dying mentally.

Kindly share your strategy with us.

Angelfrost:
This is one of the best posts I have seen on this forum since joining... I wish more of such would be availed on front page more often.

One major issue here is communication: Verbal and Non-verbal, especially writing and body language. Our educational failure as a nation stems from primary and secondary: How do you explain the fact that most SSCE level graduates of today fall short of all you mentioned? What magic do you want to do in a tertiary education of 3 to 5 years?.

Most undergraduates don't read; same goes for a lot of graduates: The reading culture is at an all-time low... This is what happens when little or no value or reward is placed on academic excellence by society and the nation at large.

Read comments here on this forum, and you will see the decadence we are talking about... Youths that rather watch games, zee-world, African Magic, Porn-Hub, etc, with no regard for CNN, AL-Jazeera, Sit-coms like Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, etc, will continue to fall short.

That there is the major problem and we are all part of it.

Many beauty pageant winners go home with cars, houses and millions of Naira. The funny thing is that these same beauty pageants are sponsored by company's we work for. Now, what we are seeing is HR officers of these same companies complaining about fallen standard of education. Your MDs, Chairmen, Directors open the cheque books to endorse celebrities that sing about codeine and gangs, celebrities that bash each other on twitter yet they are so reluctant to fund the research of a University Don for half the amount. Tell me "who is fooling who"!!!

Before you HR guys come online to lament about the obvious, you should remember that charity begins at home. What recommendations have you made to your companies about partnering with higher institutions on research and development? Look at your counterparts abroad and marvel at the amount a College professor is given as research grant by ford. Don't jut sit down and type stories on Nairaland that we have heard time and again. Make recommendations and act in accordance. Stop hyping these entertainers (have nothing personal against them though), and encourage research and education. Motivate our teachers, lecturers etc. Organize competitions where 4th place gets at least N2m and a collection of apple gadgets and see if other students won't see the gains in academic excellence and SIT UP.

Charity begins at home

A thought provoking post.

As most people have observed, most of the foundation was not laid in the pre-highier education years.
The university cannot teach self improvement skills, which should be picked up by oneself.

The advent of smart phones has weakened the desire to read and/or write.
Letter writing is dead. In those days, my uncles and elder ones corrected my letters; I did same for others.

Students do not read anymore. My experience has been that reading is the most important way to improve oneself.
Besides it being fun, it gives you an insight into areas that are not your primary calling and improves your conversational language.
Reported speech is one area most people make mistakes.

The best way to learn language skill and broaden one's horizon is to read much, watch and listen to TV and radio news and other programmes presented in formal English. This is where usage and pronunciation are learnt. Panel discussion programmes are very good.

Let me emphasise that by reading, I do not mean those sermons that men of God turn into glossy paper backs sold in high brow stores.
I mean classics and bestsellers that deal on various issues: society, culture, law, education, philosophy, science and technology, mythology, etc

It is doubtful that private schools do better than public schools as the problems raised by the op can only be solved by the individuals themselves. It is a personal thing.

[quote author=Angelfrost post=78898358]

Exactly my thought.

Mainstream TV and radio stations are the way to go for the spoken language.
Youths of nowadays no longer read. How can they when Facebook, instagram, etc, have taken up so much of their time.

In my time - not a millennium ago, anyway - we read and passed novels around.
Even till now, I still buy books on various subject matters so I do not become a straightjacket individual.