₦airaland Forum

*A strange thing is happening in Nigeria*

*By Engr Prof IM Bugaje*

```A young man spends 20 years climbing the educational ladder.

6 years in primary school.
6 years in secondary school.
4 to 6 years in university.
1 year of NYSC.

By the time he is done, he has invested roughly 6,500 to 7,000 days preparing for life.

Then life arrives and asks a simple question:

“What problem can you solve?”

Silence.

Not because he is unintelligent.

Not because he is lazy.

But because somewhere along the journey, we confused education with certification.

We taught people how to pass exams, not how to create value.

Think about it.

An electrician who never attended university can walk into a building worth N500 million and confidently power every room from``` ```the foundation to the penthouse.

A graduate with multiple certificates may stand beside him unable to identify which wire powers the building.

One has credentials.

The other has capability.

The market pays for capability.

That is why reality often delivers a rude mathematical lesson.

If a graduate earns N100,000 monthly, that is N1.2 million annually.

A skilled technician charging N40,000 per job and handling just two jobs weekly earns over N4 million yearly.

Same country.

Different skills.

Different outcomes.

The tragedy is not that one earns more than the other.

The tragedy is that we keep preparing millions of young people for a race that no longer exists.

We celebrate admission lists like victory trophies.

We celebrate graduation photos like guaranteed employment letters.

Then we act surprised when hundreds of applicants compete for one vacancy.

Imagine 1,000 people chasing 10 jobs.

Basic mathematics says 990 people will be disappointed.

No motivational speaker can negotiate with arithmetic.

Yet we continue producing graduates faster than we produce opportunities.

That is like manufacturing keys without building doors.

The painful irony?

The people we once looked down on are increasingly becoming the people we depend on.

When your transformer fails at midnight, you do not call a philosophy graduate.

When your water stops running, you do not search for a political scientist.

When your air conditioner breaks in April heat, theory suddenly becomes less important than technical competence.

The economy has a brutal honesty.

It rewards usefulness more than status.

Nations that understood this long ago built prosperity differently.

They stopped asking only, “How many graduates do we have?”

They started asking, “How many builders, technicians, machinists, coders, welders, mechanics and innovators can we produce?”

There is dignity in intellectual work.

There is dignity in skilled labour.

The mistake is ranking one above the other.

A society that worships certificates while neglecting competence eventually discovers that framed documents cannot build roads, repair machines, wire factories, manufacture products or create wealth.

The future belongs to people who can solve problems.

Whether they learned it in a lecture hall, a workshop, an apprenticeship centre or under a mango tree is secondary.

Because at the end of the day, the market does not award marks.

It awards value.

And value has never asked to see anybody’s certificate before writing the cheque.```

I pray Nigeria wins 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬

Engr Prof IM Bugaje

Executive Secretary,
National Board for Technical Education (NBTE)

Where so many people rush to, there is always no way there...





I almost regretted wasting all those years learning life from people who don't even have ideas on how life works (Teachers. Lecturers)



By the way, what value does that project we did then add to our lives?!

IAM4BAT4plus4:
Where so many people rush to, there is always no way there...
I almost regretted wasting all those years learning life from people who don't even have ideas on how life works (Teachers. Lecturers)
By the way, what value does that project we did then add to our lives?!

If education has no value, try ignorance.

Is that why you are stiuck with Remi Tinubu's akara business, since her husband is clueless about creating promised jobs

If you are a Father here, I suggest you quickly enrol your children in institution where they teach Artificial intelligence and Coding. They can be doing it as part time program while still attending normal school.

When they graduate, they can become self employed immediately if they don't want to work in a firm. They can also conveniently work from home.

As you dey train your kids for school, make dem learn better skill join am.

the truth is that many graduates dont know how to create jobs for themselves

school does not teach survival skills after graduation, graduates are programmed to find office jobs not to create one

a guy with a technical certificate and a o level knows that no other option for survival except they hustle

Too many graduates who can't write a simple formal letter

Just try and have a certification in information Technology. E get why!

Sense 🤔. I will suggest basic education before technical learning though.

Worldwide, the same obtains. That's why plumbers and electricians make good money in the US for instance. But this is not to say formal education is a waste of time. The ordinary electrician on the street may know how to go about wiring a building but the certified electrical engineer knows the why. A mason knows how to pour and mix concrete but only a trained structural or civil engineer knows where that concrete, when poured in its right mix, can deliver long lasting results.

Informal education is good but no informally trained plumber or electrician starts making huge money right away. Same of course goes to the graduate that just came out of university. On paper, he is qualified but only after years of experience, will that qualification become relevant for him to earn good. And by then he is seeing money the informally trained electrician can only dream of.

Anyone can probably learn how to weld random metals together on the street. But it takes years of formal education in university to understand material science and engineering, understand the properties of custom alloys and their uses and how to achieve them.

Large scale industrialization doesn't come about from gathering artisans together but from developing a deep knowledge base that can harness available resources, develop new ones and create multiple use scenarios. There is a reason why few countries can make jet engines today and even less than 3 countries worldwide can make chips. That's the kind of specialized knowledge only universities can offer. We have too many laymen in Nigeria. What we need is certified professionals with depth of knowledge and that's why we have to repurpose our universities.

Education is never a scam. But you can make it a scam when you lack the skill to demonstrate what you're taught

If you actually did the project yourself you would know the value

IAM4BAT4plus4:
Where so many people rush to, there is always no way there...





I almost regretted wasting all those years learning life from people who don't even have ideas on how life works (Teachers. Lecturers)



By the way, what value does that project we did then add to our lives?!

Buhari said he will create 5 million jobs . . . Till the day he kpai we no see any single one 🙄

Tilumbu came out and said he is continuing from where Buhari stopped and guess what?

Over 5 million SME's and other allied business that generate employment was rendered comatose with his uselessly inept 'anti-people' policies 😞

Education in Nigeria is a very big scam

YeyeGbami:
As you dey train your kids for school, make dem learn better skill join am.

Like how you learned driving? 🧐

Hehehe 🤭

This our famous APC taxi driver no dey surprise me again with him comments and takes in support of tilumbu 😏

anonimi:
If education has no value, try ignorance.

Is that why you are stiuck with Remi Tinubu's akara business, since her husband is clueless about creating promised jobs

Don't drag this into that section, pls

Education is not a scam, it depends on what you did while you were in school? It's the government of Nigeria that makes education looks like a waste of time

This is propaganda from oyinbos. They don't want black people to be educated.

That said, someone who only has trade training has a limited foundation to work from. And they are likely not even fully trained in their trade. This is why people who want to do a trade should do technical programs at universities. Let me say that again. People who want to pursue a trade should do so at a university. Furthermore, there is no such thing as an engineering graduate who can't figure out how to fix something. And one of the most important things anyone walks away from a university with is the ability to teach themselves something, anything.

Struggling graduates are likely people who lack the resources/access to do what they need to do. Some of them might also feel like certain jobs are beneath them or don't pay "enough." Some of them might be convinced that certain things aren't possible or are unlikely to work out because they've seen others fail or suffer, for example, starting a business or moving to a particular location to find work.

It's also important to remember that not every graduate truly put in work. Some people cheated their way through. It's no surprise that they walk out clueless.

The writer is promoting his vocational ministry.

The irony of Nigeria is that it affects everyone, including skill labourer, same for the unemployed graduates.

Nigeria system has rendered alot of artisan useless, most have resulted to Okadaman due to lack of electricity, lack customers in their trade.

My kids will follow their passion but they must get education first.

That's just my own standard.

I'll also enroll my kids in weekends and holiday technical school simultaneously.

P.S A 500million project cannot be handled by ordinary electrician.

IAM4BAT4plus4:
*A strange thing is happening in Nigeria*

*By Engr Prof IM Bugaje*

```A young man spends 20 years climbing the educational ladder.

6 years in primary school.
6 years in secondary school.
4 to 6 years in university.
1 year of NYSC.

By the time he is done, he has invested roughly 6,500 to 7,000 days preparing for life.

Then life arrives and asks a simple question:

“What problem can you solve?”

Silence.

Not because he is unintelligent.

Not because he is lazy.

But because somewhere along the journey, we confused education with certification.

We taught people how to pass exams, not how to create value.

Think about it.

An electrician who never attended university can walk into a building worth N500 million and confidently power every room from``` ```the foundation to the penthouse.

A graduate with multiple certificates may stand beside him unable to identify which wire powers the building.

One has credentials.

The other has capability.

The market pays for capability.

That is why reality often delivers a rude mathematical lesson.

If a graduate earns N100,000 monthly, that is N1.2 million annually.

A skilled technician charging N40,000 per job and handling just two jobs weekly earns over N4 million yearly.

Same country.

Different skills.

Different outcomes.

The tragedy is not that one earns more than the other.

The tragedy is that we keep preparing millions of young people for a race that no longer exists.

We celebrate admission lists like victory trophies.

We celebrate graduation photos like guaranteed employment letters.

Then we act surprised when hundreds of applicants compete for one vacancy.

Imagine 1,000 people chasing 10 jobs.

Basic mathematics says 990 people will be disappointed.

No motivational speaker can negotiate with arithmetic.

Yet we continue producing graduates faster than we produce opportunities.

That is like manufacturing keys without building doors.

The painful irony?

The people we once looked down on are increasingly becoming the people we depend on.

When your transformer fails at midnight, you do not call a philosophy graduate.

When your water stops running, you do not search for a political scientist.

When your air conditioner breaks in April heat, theory suddenly becomes less important than technical competence.

The economy has a brutal honesty.

It rewards usefulness more than status.

Nations that understood this long ago built prosperity differently.

They stopped asking only, “How many graduates do we have?”

They started asking, “How many builders, technicians, machinists, coders, welders, mechanics and innovators can we produce?”

There is dignity in intellectual work.

There is dignity in skilled labour.

The mistake is ranking one above the other.

A society that worships certificates while neglecting competence eventually discovers that framed documents cannot build roads, repair machines, wire factories, manufacture products or create wealth.

The future belongs to people who can solve problems.

Whether they learned it in a lecture hall, a workshop, an apprenticeship centre or under a mango tree is secondary.

Because at the end of the day, the market does not award marks.

It awards value.

And value has never asked to see anybody’s certificate before writing the cheque.```

I pray Nigeria wins 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬

Engr Prof IM Bugaje

Executive Secretary,
National Board for Technical Education (NBTE)

I won't build a house of 500 million and call an electrician.

80% Nigeria students in the university are there for hook up and yahoo

It is what happens when your economy is not based on manufacturing but instead on selling oyel

anonimi:
If education has no value, try ignorance.

Is that why you are stiuck with Remi Tinubu's akara business, since her husband is clueless about creating promised jobs

Education does not come through the university alone. People get educated through different forms.

By the way, the kind of education(schooling), especially tertiary, we have in Nigeria is archaic and mostly useless.

The government doesn't even trust our graduates.

Olatara:
I won't build a house of 500 million and call an electrician.

U will call a panel beater

Cousin9999:
This is propaganda from oyinbos. They don't want black people to be educated.

That said, someone who only has trade training has a limited foundation to work from. And they are likely not even fully trained in their trade. This is why people who want to do a trade should do technical programs at universities. Let me say that again. People who want to pursue a trade should do so at a university. Furthermore, there is no such thing as an engineering graduate who can't figure out how to fix something. And one of the most important things anyone walks away from a university with is the ability to teach themselves something, anything.

Struggling graduates are likely people who lack the resources/access to do what they need to do. Some of them might also feel like certain jobs are beneath them or don't pay "enough." Some of them might be convinced that certain things aren't possible or are unlikely to work out because they've seen others fail or suffer, for example, starting a business or moving to a particular location to find work.

It's also important to remember that not every graduate truly put in work. Some people cheated their way through. It's no surprise that they walk out clueless.

It isn't propaganda from oyinvos. it is how many countries developed. including then saner climes. Including Russia and China.

IVE ALWAYS HAD THIS OPINION

ALL SECONDARY SCHOOLS SHOULD BE CONVERTED TO TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

ALL UNIVERSITIES SHOULD BE RESEARCH DEGREES PURELY

AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT SHOULD PROSCRIBE MINISTERIAL SLOTS FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS WITH YEARS OF FIELD EXPERIENCE

THIS CONNECTS OUR EDUCATION TO POLICY MAKING

AND BRINGS SYNERGY FOR DEVELOPMENT in

Your Government teacher is a secondary school Teacher because he couldn't become a Lawyer 😂😂😂

Think about it

Jmichael1:
U will call a panel beater

Eh go call god of lightning

Nteogwuija:
Education does not come through the university alone. People get educated through different forms.

By the way, the kind of education(schooling), especially tertiary, we have in Nigeria is archaic and mostly useless.

The government doesn't even trust our graduates.

If the graduates can not take ownership of THEIR own government, then who is to blame?

A plumber earns more than the average professor in the US. It is all over.

IAM4BAT4plus4:
Where so many people rush to, there is always no way there...





I almost regretted wasting all those years learning life from people who don't even have ideas on how life works (Teachers. Lecturers)



By the way, what value does that project we did then add to our lives?!

My brother, many people WASTE their precious time and youth on pure nonsense. Then they still do same with their children.
And the cycle continues until one stubborn person breaks it.

LordIsaac:
A plumber earns more than the average professor in the US. It is all over.

Not really. See below