MASTERS OR JACKS OF ALL TRADE? By Barr. PD Kasam

Once again, the NUC is complicating the already unproductive educational system in Nigeria by telling us indirectly that formal education isn’t the key to solving Nigeria’s economic problems.

First, at Masters level of the Nigerian educational level, students are required to take ‘required’ courses. These courses include Padegogy, ICT and Entrepreneurship irrespective of the course of study. While Padegogy is reasonably justifiable, I am gravely concerned about making courses like Entrepreneurship a compulsory course as its course outline is basically limited to training suya makers, tailors, caterers etc. These are issues that require no serious skill and there is nothing spectacular about it. By the way, why shouldn’t I just stay in my village and become an apprentice to the tailors there? Why must the system make me pay an extra skill to acquire some skills I have no passion for whatsoever?

My mother was a caterer and I am a great cook and would have been operating a classy restaurant but that isn’t my passion. That is why people go school- to refine passion into productive ventures.
Ordianrily, courses like ICT and Entrepreneurship are part of undergraduate curriculum been taught as GST. It is expected in any decent and civilised setup that at Masters level, the scope of learning should be narrower and focused on intensive specialisation. Instead of focusing on creating specialty at that level of learning, the system is fully committed to distracting our supposed specialist with acquiring expertise in unskilled manual labour. A master of Pharmacy will not be taught how to make invention or innovations in the area of drug making but rather, the NUC trains pharmacists on how to do saya, masa, tailoring and petty trade.
Let’s be factual, disappointment in NUC’S myopic idea of enterprenual training is the least of all worries in the matter. As a matter of fact, Nigeria became the world’s capital of poverty after the NUC introduced Entrepreneurship as a compulsory course in the curriculum of undergraduates which is an obvious reality that teaching entreprenual skills of Suya making, tailoring and masa.

NYSC has its own arm of the problem. It’s called Skill Acquisition and Enterprenual Development (SAED).

Nigeria is such a myopic country that once something works out of very few persons, they will quickly adopt it and impose it on everyone else even if it’s not working. If the Entrepreneurship taught at undergraduate level and NYSC SAED is productive, Nigeria wouldn’t be the World Capital of Poverty.
The economy prospers when people make products that are direly needed. Advance economies thrive on inventions and innovation. The countries we call developed are so called because the took time to develop technology. I have been to Israel and found first hand that Israel has no natural resources like Nigeria! Yet, it manufacture cars and have developed high variety agricultural products. From their hills, they carve stones and tiles for their construction industry.
Not trying to exaggerate but Israel can feed Nigeria and I think it can house the Nigerian population. All these is because Israel worked on its technological sector with little income from tourism. In China, students at secondary level are trained to make phones and other electronics. In the 21st century, economies thrive on skilled manpower not sure making.

Unfortunately, NUC is hell bent on producing engineers who can’t service even their own cars. Instead of introducing technological skills to students so that we produce what we direly need, NUC is busy stuffing great brains with saya making and shawama ideas. Little wonder, a third class graduate of ABU Zaria, I reliably gathered, makes drones for the USA. As far as Nigeria is concern, that guy should be a tailor or saya maker after all, the Minister of Health says Medical Doctors should start tailoring work. The difference is quite simple: the Nigerian system produces products that require no skill; advance economies seek to impart skills.

Now my point is that despite the manifest failure of the system, the myopic NUC is pushing high it’s unproductive campaign of stuffing great brains with learning saya making at Masters level as if the way it screwed the undergraduate level wasn’t enough. Little wonder, Nigeria can’t produce inventors in the local context who can make ground breaking inventions simply because it has a system that only produce jacks of all trade. The educational system that works is the system that helps people turn their passion into concrete useful ideas.

It’s quite unfortunate that in the 21st century, a highly revered educational agency isn’t thinking of creating patents that are exportable to strengthen Nigeria’s economy but it’s seriously wasting time seeking to produce saya makers as Masters Degree holders. It shouldn’t be so! It’s wrong and totally unacceptable that at this age, we are still thinking of suya making as a great entrepreneurial skill worthy of our masters degree holders.

From what I see, Nigeria is going to sink deeper as the World’s Headquarters of Poverty.
If NUC truly wants to produce great entrepreneurs, it must learn to apply practical technological relativism to every subject which will make students become patent holders not sure makers. What we need is turning passion into helpful ventures not making supposed specialists jacks of all trade.

P D Kasam
[email protected]

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MASTERS OR JACKS OF ALL TRADE? By Barr. PD Kasam