₦airaland Forum

Lmao

Yeah, Latina women in general can be quite hot.

Me encanta mexicanas especialmente...

Ellas tienen pechos grandes, saben que bailar suavamente, y finalmente les gusta que yo hablo espanol con un "accent" mexicano

Ah you speak Portuguese? Cool language.

I get the gist of it...self-determination is a universal "something." Universal right, privilege? Nao=nos=we I suppose.

No sabia que los cubanos son amigos fuertes de los yoruba :]

Haha that it is pretty cool if so

Education is another one of those things that needs to be purely federalized.

Let every state chart its own education agenda.

If you want your children to waste their time learning 5 or even 10 different Nigerian languages, so be it. Just don't be surprised when said children are unemployable and do poorly on JAMB, WAEC and other standardized exams...

I mean, in principle this is an English speaking country. Between that and pidgin, most people are able to communicate with each other well.

So communication right now is not an issue, is it?

This is just another one of those time-wasting fake unity building exercises.

I don't like when people with political agendas meddle in something as important as education...proposals like this tend to be the end result.

And then you get an education system that doesn't prepare kids for the challenges they will face, competing in this world..

Right. But the trade-off is not Yoruba+Igbo versus just Yoruba alone.

It is Yoruba + being good at enough at math so that physics is not challenging for you. So that you can fulfill your dream of being a medical doctor by doing well in your pre-med requirements (ok, not quite sure if physics is mandatory to become a doctor in naija, but you get the idea.)

Or fulfill your dream of being an engineer, scientist, etc.

Basically, there are a limited number of hours a student has during primary and secondary school. You need to make those hours count.

Tbh proficiency in mathematics is going to be far more useful in the long run for the welfare of SW Nigeria than learning another Nigerian language.

Better to focus a child's precious hours on math and science than say Hausa, in my opinion.

You'll be more competitive in this rapidly globalizing world that way.

Speaking one indigenous language + English is good enough for most

At some point if/when I have the chance to spend 3-4 months or so in Nigeria, i'll use that time to become fluent.

But for now I have some other things that must be accomplished first...

And Onlytruth is proficient in at least Hausa, iirc.

It honestly doesn't matter...if one is a separatist, speaking every language in Nigeria won't help

Useless waste of time.

Improvement in English proficiency makes more sense...that way you are able to communicate with other Nigerians, but also others in the world.

hrm

eh...

hehehe

Happy Easter to you all.

Make your life easy and learn C++ from a good book that uses STL/Boost

no

unfortunately we are basically preindustrial

Hehe

The nature/nurture direction was kind of fun and interesting, but this "black power" turn...I always wonder why the must virulent pan-Africanist, black power types are preaching from London. Kind of cracks me up.

If you believe your message so much, quit your job in London and go teach in my town!

Talk is cheap bruh

I need to run some errands.

Will be back in a few hours...until then

Kilode, in short, deal with it. You are one of the elites

You will fool your kids with these stories of how you made it to America through luck and hard work, but then they'll find out that their grandfather is a college graduate in chemistry, speaks excellent English, that their father was the local science fair champion in high school, etc.

On a serious note though, I think the main lesson I've drawn from this personally is a bit more humility. To realize that my accomplishments aren't really due to anything amazing that I personally did, but basically a consequence of certain things I've inherited from my parents and grandparents.

Of course, it sounds a helluva lot sexier to say that your grandfather was an illiterate lion hunter in the Ekiti bush or something

Interesting:

Education
British Nigerian pupils are one of the most successful groups academically, with 56% of black Nigerian pupils achieving 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C in 2005, compared to 55% of White British children in 2005 and 42% of black Caribbean pupils.[10]

So pretty similar to white British? Well above black Caribbeans.

I'm not sure how to compare this to the US figure.

Do we have like SAT results or something for Nigerians vs. white Americans?

Kilode, so you believe that most Nigerians in the US come from below average backgrounds in Nigeria?

You used yourself as an example. I am very sure that you are not the first person in your family to go to university. I am sure that your parents are not illiterates. You completed high school. All of those things by itself puts you well above average, does it not?

Despite the challenges you went through, it isn't accurate to say that you were ever at the bottom of Nigerian society, right?

So even if you believe that you yourself have nothing in common with the elites, you aren't and probably never in your life were the proverbial average Nigerian living on $1/day, right?

But you are correct that we are both just speculating...we don't have hard data on the background of Nigerian immigrants. But if the majority of them did not have impressive credentials before leaving Nigeria (at least relative to the average), I would be highly surprised.

strangerf: To a great extent. That is why Ben Carson could go from the inner cities of Detroit to becoming one of the the most respected and certainly the most experienced neurosurgeon around, despite his weak academic qualifications ( At least, his SAT scores were not of Yale's standard). Same reason why very well educated Harvard grads get fired from jobs for incompetence. It all the depends on how you use the opportunities you had/have.

Fair enough. Then we just are making different assumptions about the way the world works.

I don't believe that everyone is equally intelligent any more than I believe everyone is equally tall, weighs the same, has the same wingspan, etc.

Some are taller/skinnier/stronger/can jump higher than others can.

Same with intelligence.

Anyway, given that we are making different assumptions about how the world works, then there isn't really much further to discuss.

strangerf: How am I supposed to know that? Like I said, the best among us then, after completing their HSC, take up govt/clerical jobs, apprenticeships or teaching jobs in their villages. Only few had the presence of mind to further. And why would they? They were making good money and living large as government employees. Only the unemployed and less talented deemed it necessary to further their education. Names like Amos Tutola, Wole Soyinka, Ooni, Rev. I. O. Ransome Kuti etc come to mind. [s]The rich, and to some extent, the exposed, go outside of the country for quality education[/s]. There were no standardized test besides the rote memorization required to obtain your certificate.

When? Ok, I made certain assumptions about your age. Just to be clear, I'm mostly focusing on people who were finishing high school in the 60s and 70s, not before that.

Clearly by then, most people saw that a university education is desirable? The best didn't aspire only for teaching jobs in their villages?

Or are you one of those people who believes that everyone is of the same intelligence level or something? That nobody is smarter/dumber than the other?

OK, let's address this 50th percentile issue, since it is the most obvious part.

Clearly those who gained admission to Ife/Ibadan/etc, at a minimum they spoke English. Could read and write. Can do some math. Maybe know some Latin. Could at least complete a high school education. Could take certain exams.

Call this population group X.

Call Nigerians as a whole Y.

Do you think that the average intelligence level of group X is:

a) below the average
b) at the average
c) above the average

of the intelligence level of group Y?

India has the same exact issue actually...their average performance (aggregated over all Indians) is fairly low. But they have a crapload of talent abroad.

It might seem like a contradiction, but it isn't...you are looking at two different populations. So you cannot use one to talk about the abilities of the other..

Are you talking about the education levels of Nigerians as a whole? I.e., all Nigerians on earth aggregated together?

Or just those in the UK? Versus other Africans in the UK, Caribbeans in the UK?

I don't know much about the stats for those populations in the UK. But I have seen the #s for Nigeria as a country versus other African countries. And they didn't look good.

Which suggests that Nigerians on average aren't very educated/literate relative to at least certain other African countries, population of black folk in the USA, and Caribbean blacks.

You cannot really predict where talent will come from. Kind of silly to a priori rule out certain places for leadership...only reduces your talent pool and thus diminishes your overall effectiveness.

Make things as meritocratic as possible and you'll get the best results

I dunno about Nigerians being the most educated blacks. I've seen some of those African literacy rates country by country and some of those countries blow Nigeria out of the water.

Then again if you cut out northern nigeria and only focused on the southern part, probably the case becomes better.

Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some of those other countries are pretty educated...probably more educated than Nigeria.

African Americans probably are more educated on average than Nigerians too...well, I'd be surprised if they weren't, let's put it that way.

bittyend: I disagree with the bolded part. Most of the Nigerians in the UK are from the class I bolded in your post - and their children are well educated over here. I guess Nigerians in America are different from the ones over here.

How did they get visa to the UK?

I'm kind of surprised.

Hrm, but perhaps I shouldn't be.

So if what you are saying is true, then it is fairly unlikely for Nigerians to be the most educated in the UK..

Do we have statistics on say:

a) entrance exams for those universities
b) high school leaving exams for Nigeria as a whole
c) average of those who gained entry to university

from the 50s, 60s, 70s?

That would be help in figuring out how much above average those early Nigerian college students were.