₦airaland Forum

@ajanlekoko

Considering that it is the individual that the education baton ultimately rests on,
I guess you and I end in the same conclusion but with different perspectives

What I am trying to say with all these is that education is not an end in itself
it is a training needed to allow as much individuals as possible to fit into the goal of their system or organisation


Thats why some countries open their borders only to immigrants with some particular skill sets at some point in time
and might change the required skills for immigration after some time

Education should therefore be flexible/agile to meet society's changing needs
unfortunately, because of their huge size, it is difficult for organisations to be flexible or to change quickly

It is therefore important for individuals to be the change that they want and pull education in line with environmental trends

Now, if the system has trained too many worker ants, and they cannot fit into the organisation
(i.e, no jobs available)
the next logical thing to do will be to expand its colony
It will only be able to expand its colony if it teaches some ants the skills needed to expand the economy
and then support them in acheiving this expansion project

When it has expanded its colony, it would do well to redirect training to some new skills that meets the society's present needs
if it continues to train individuals on skills needed to expand, the system goes into disequilibrium again

For self preservation, the goal of the system/organisation is therefore to provide oppurtunities for its individuals to survive.

The system teaches its individuals skills that can enable them fit into the wider survival of the organisation. Like the ants, it ensures that some are workers, some are soldiers and some are leaders -Also called education

This ensures that all are happy and acheive their goals - both system and individuals

A situation where the system provides training in skills (education) that are not usefull to the system will ultimately mean that its individuals are not not able to fit it. There is therefore a disquilibrium in the system. The center cannot hold ...... ithe system ultimately implodes

AjanleKoko: Beyond a demand and supply issue, I fail to see what else is wrong with the educational system.
There are a lot of people in school all over the world, who expect to graduate and walk into paid employment with minimal effort. If you ask me, this is due to the fact that the education sector is growing faster than the economies themselves. More schools offering greater access to students and a wider specialization, meaning that students are graduating faster than jobs are being created.

Also white-collar income continues to rise. The more money we are paid, the slow the growth and expansion of the companies we work for. Paid employment is far more comfortable than entrepreneurship, and offers much more starting incentives. 'Management' in itself has been oversimplified into a coterie of quick-fix techniques, hence the demand for MBAs and so-called consulting skills, as opposed to actual technical ability.

.......[editted]

So effectively, it's the person, not the school(s).

Wow!!!
You're shifting us into interesting but deep waters

Lets take a look at things this way:

-individuuals need to be able to at a mimimum make a living
-an active economic system allows as much of its individuals as possible to make sustainable living while engaging with it
-the goal of the system is to survive forever if possible
-if a critical mass of individuals in the system are not able to acheive the basics of life, they would sobatage the system in a bid to look out for new oppurtunities to survive. Such sabotage could come in the form of migration, power struggles, crime etc

AjanleKoko: Okay bros.

First the initial premise, which is that education has failed its customers. My first question would be, are we referring to tertiary education solely, or the whole shebang (primary-secondary-tertiary)?

And also, in what context are we placing the perceived failure? Is it quality (delivery and output), availability/access, or net gains to both individual and society?

Do clarify.

i'd look at it as the entire 'education supply chain'
the secondary schools feed from th primary, the tetiary feeds from the seconday, and the society feeds from the output of any aspect one decides to jump off the supply chain from

My major concern is with the output context, although failure in other aspects are self evident
Within the output context, the education system does not seem to be of much benefit to individual and society

The increased availability of 'certified education' is beneficial to the egos(elitist feeling) of individuals
and beneficial at providing some elevation of our collective intelligence in line with western knowledge
but, it sadly generally does not translate into more income
Also,
Society (a collection of nigerian individuals) has not gained much in comparism to some other countries

There is a chasmic expectation- reality gap in our education system and its nexus with society/economy

AjanleKoko: That's part of the problem.
Why not approach indigenous construction professionals/geologists, who have experience building in the Delta?
Why does it have to be universities first?

Like most problems we have in Nigeria, there's always an obvious solution, which others are obviously employing, but many others prefer to over-complicate the problem, for personal reasons.

My experience of this phenonmenon is that foreign organisations tend to engage learning institutions first before looking outside the box

There are actually ungoing management research about organisations building relationships with members of their industry that grants them access to knowledge. The challenge is that such knowledge is usually hoarded as competitive advantage.
So what organisations do is to hire individuals from experienced companies hoping to absorb their knowledge

Following from my earlier reaction to Ajanlekoko

Though many economies are over supplied with certificates
Universities continue to commoditize the issuing of certificates and try their best to create the psychological needs for certificates

This is natural, considering that few institutions change except there is a distruption that threatens their existense

AjanleKoko: Can we engage you now?

ride on

AjanleKoko: .......... The real problem with education, in Nigeria and elsewhere, is that students are becoming increasingly disconnected from the raison-d'etre, the why of going to school . What people do is throw certificates at the problem, primarily because of the same fallacy you stated about Harvard. There is a global erroneous perception that elite education translates directly to elite opportunities. If government started to spend a billion dollars every year on university education in Nigeria, imported foreign lecturers, raised the standard of the JAMB to GRE/GMAT levels, but refused to diversify the economy, fix infrastructure problems, tackle corruption, etc., there would be zero impact on the economy. Just a huge drain on the national purse and an army of highly-educated youths with nowhere to go.

Sorry about the long post.

Excellent
My belief is that education is systemic/holistic.

However, it is important that education is viewed within economic utility.
Within such economic approach, it is important that education maps skills to economic demands

If the government or individuals throws money after 'education' that the economy does not need, it would be a waste

The economy/society does not presently need certificates, or rather the supply of certificates is more than that demanded by the society/economy....

Considering that big organisations/systems are by their nature extremely hard to turn around or change
we might be wasting our time bemoaning the falling standards of education and its irrelevance to match the current economic gaps

We might do ourselves a favor by taking to the clouds to meet our educational/gap-filling needs

THANKS

So although you were formally trained to hunt for fish
immediately you are thrown into the jungle to hunt for lions...

the sensible thing to do is to google "how to kill a lion", "what kinds of lions exist in my jungle", and use the internet to network with other experienced lion killers for more information (-called a community of practice)

I mean if you're going for an interview for a job in a company, it might be helpful to search the web for individuals that are presently in such positions and are willing to share with you what their day to day activities are like.

U can learn to breed catfish from research available on the internet

The internet thus provides the global community with an educative oppurtinity it had never dreamt of
Its time to seek for actionable knowledge ahead of paper certificates

The second approach to bridging the education gap is on an individual level

Thanks to the internet age, anyone can get as much knowledge as possibe
folks have even gained knowledge needed to make IED's by simply searching the web.

However, unlike formal knowledge which utilized a push strategy ( -u siddon for class wile teacher dey teach you wetin dem know)
This new frontier utilizes a pull strategy (-u actively search for information as required using ur laptop, ipad or mobile phone)

AjanleKoko: At what point should we engage you?

after the 2nd approach

,,

From this story, you can actually identify a systemic challenge facing our educatonal system

the system is in need of research funding,
and for it not to be wasted investment, there needs to be a channel linking the knowledge gained from R&D to actionable results
When organisations utilize the knowledge, it is neccesary that they pay for it so that the cycle is sustainable

.....All this requires a minimum level of regulation and patronage from the government.

A summary of this approach is that there needs to be a nationwide restructuring of educattion that provides fit-for-purpose and actionable knowledge. This restructuring should allow for flexibility that maps learning directly to the need of the society

Ajanlekoko, i dey come
make i finish d tori

A lot of money is spent on the resaerch in the UK
the result is patented
the knowledge gained is taught in the UK
and imported by ABC construction


The project is completed successfully
The president is happy. He makes a political statement and gives ABC constructions more contracts

Dan wites on his blog about Emeka and his lie lie CV and how Nigerians are corrupt
Nigerians wonder why Nigerians could not successfully execute the project
Bayo shakes his head at it all

Construction starts

the PMO team realise that the niger delta soil type is different from types they are used to
They approach some Nigeria universities to help out in solutions, the dons tell them that it does not matter
Bayo resists this, because he realises that that is the reason why indeginous projects have failed in Nigeria

They expore the option of importing UK soil to Nigeria. Some politicians are happy about this as they calculate how much they can gain from contract review.
Bayo resists this and instead encourages that Niger Delta soil samples are taken back to UK for research

ABC Engineering sends Dan to lead the project as an expatriate being paid hefty sums
they try to get Bayo to join in the project as a local hire (so that he comes cheap)
Bayo refuses,..he's finally granted the status of expatriate staff and part of the PMO

The PMO (project management office) which is lead by Dan comes into Nigeria to hire staff
Emeka presents his CV full of plenty lies
(When he finished university, he stayed at home for 3 yrs before getting a job in the bank. He was then laid off and heard about this oppurtinity from Bayo's cousins cousin who is his girlfriend)

Emeka gets hired by Dan
Emeka actually has little or no engineering experience plus his knowledge of engineering is grounded in outdated theories he was taught in university

-Emeka would most likely find it extremely hard to get a civil engineering job in Nigeria (UK is a far away dream)
-Bayo would struggle hard and finally break through in the UK (hopefully as an engineer)
-Dan would most easilly get a job in the UK, and would most easily be giving senior positions and exposures ahead of Bayo the Nigerian

Next, lets imagine that there is a massive engineering project for ABC construction in Nigeria. ABC construction is the company that Bayo and Dan work for

Now imagine a Nigerian civil engineer trained in the UK -Bayo, and another trained in Nigeria -Emeka. Also imagine a 3rd british engineer trained in the UK -Dan
Also assume that all have the same mental capability.

Bayo and Dan most likely have a better exposure to global standard engineering best practice and new research training than Emeka who has been taught with old text books with little lab and practical experience

Within the Nigerian context, Emeka's advantage is that he understands the Nigerian cultural environment best.
The soil types that Bayo and Dan are exposed to working with are exclusive to the UK

I'll start with the second one: The Systemic approach

The system (whatever that is) needs to put in place enlightened regulations and educational re-engineering that will support applicative education.

Let's break this down into manageable bits using a narrative that we are familiar with

Applicative education maps the building block science to the outcomes desired
It ensures that after studying engineering, you are actually able to build a bridge, and not just carrying files around.
It ensures that you can apply yourself in you work environment.

So how do we plug this gap?
I think there are two approaches to doing this. The first is on an individual level, while the second is in a systematic/national level

Though you were not thaught those skills by your school
some of you were fortunate enough to have familly and friends teach you the really important skills

This kind of gap in education, and the value of mentorship is documented in the book "Rich dad, poor dad"
-However, my goal is not neccesarily to discuss mentorship, but to open our eyes to the gaps that we need to close

You will agree with me that those skills I have just mentioned are crucial for your survival
Yet, you were never taught by your school

Isn't that strange??

Contemplate these :

-How come you were not taught to sign while you were in seconday school, seeing that most of your transactions would involve your authenticating documents through signing?
=How come your secondary school did not teach you how to open bank accounts?
-How many of your schools taught you how to use a calculator? This is a tool that would be used a lot in your later life
-How many of your schools taught you the value of good posture when you were growing up?
-Did your university teach you how to manage an interview?
-Did your university teach you how to network?

In contrast to the elitist education, we have the applicative type of education

This type of education sources data from the internal and external environment and transforms it from information, knowledge all the way to action.

The west seem to be ahead in this type of education (though they've not fully tapped into it), while it seems our Nigerian educative system has held firmly to the past.

Applicative education is a massive topic. But I'll try examining it from as many paradigms as I can

The Challenge that we have in this century is that everyone now access to the previously 'elitist' type of education
education has now been democratized. It has therefore lost its value
Even studying in a foreign land has lost its value as an elitist form of education

Offcourse, you can change your fortunes by bagging a Harvard certificate.
(I say this in the context of the education continuum i mentioned earlier)

The elitist education was useful in Nigeria when few people were educated or furthered their education to doctoral level.
It enabled its practitioners to read and write aand apply themselves to a small extent.

Most of all, it seperated the elites from the others. All nations have their elites who contol power.
Such elitist education have always existed.
It could be as simple as a select set of people being trained to read the bible written in latin or Quran in Arabic
Sometimes a group of people were tought to read the stars -astronomy.
A posh accent or ability to dwell endlessly in meaningless poems were some of the hallmarks of such education

Ones ability to engage the 'elites' with some form of their education was therefore a useful skill that could open doors to you.
You were deemed to have washed your hands well, and could therefore eat with the elders

It is my view that all these are the wrong approach to education

I believe that there are primarily two types or continuum of education/learning:
-The first has mainly an elitist objective, serving little purpose apart from creating a set of letterd people set apart from the commoners. I'll call this Elitist education
-the objective of the second type is to enable individuals apply themselves in their ever changing environment -I'll call this applicative education

Imagine if you were trained to fish in a stream, then sent out to the forest to hunt for a lion

This is exactly what is happening in most global education system today, and moreso in my beloved country Nigeria
I have observed that many Nigerian schools simply share information (both researched and unresearched) to its students
(Some of our science modules still have Pluto has the 9th planet when this has been found to be untrue)
Its students try hard to memorize as much of this information as possible so as to pass their exams and get certified
The students graduate and try to use the paper certificates as tools for jobs without much success


When we go to the West to learn, what they have available, and teach us is the knowledge that should be useful in their environment.
We then come back to Nigeria and try applying such knowledge without much success. So we scream and say that the system is not structured. For those of us that get into any form of employment, we make little attempts to make our environment as structured as the West so that the theories that we have learnt can work