Misplaced rage against foreign education

let ondo state show us what it can do with adeyemi college of education...

NEXT, I went through your last paragraph and I felt that ‘putting more money into public schools…’would not even solve the problem at hand. The moment Nigerians are focused on something, they will not change because sending children abroad has now been turned into status symbol or classicism by the Nigerian middle and upper class. It is not uncommon to hear some Nigerian women saying to their friends in Yoruba: ‘London lawon omo mi wa or America lawon omo mi tin lo school.’ Literal interpretation of this is: “my children are schooling in London or my children are schooling in America.’ These are parents that went to Nigerian schools. But I will hold our leaders responsible for this situation. Apart from corruption, over emphasis on university education as well as cultism is killing us.

Why I understand the ire of the Governor, I would rather advise him to keep quiet. When did the craze for foreign educate start? Maybe late 90s. People have been going to school abroad but it became a deluge after the whole educational sector collapsed. Currently, most students prefer the private universities for undergraduate studies but these universities haven’t focused on post graduate. LBS offers good post graduate courses but it takes just too long – at least 18 months. Government caused the problem, the citizens only voted with their money. Like Truck Pusher said, let Mimiko just do something, just a little bit, with Adeyemi College and next time he speaks, I will listen

Isn't it funny that the title was "Misplaced rage against foreign education?" Yet, the only universities were mentioned.The elitist slant of your editorial speaks to the monumental problems facing Nigeria.I had a university degree in engineering in Nigeria, but now I am having to go through an apprenticeship scheme. Nigeria offered me an inferior education, I speak to the useless theory without industrial experience that I spent quality years of my life acquiring. So what else is new? Your editorial lacks balance and missed a opportunity to highlight some structural imbalance. If you don't have a university degree in Nigeria, you are faceless.

@Just Do it! Your analysis of this Editorial is spot on. I suspect that while trying to agonise over the statement credited to the Governor, the editorial team did not do enough justice to justify the finer points on why schooling in foreign climes is preferred by those who can afford it. I daresay that when the Ziks, Awos and Tafawa Balewa schooled in UK and USA back in the early 20th century, it was not as a result of elitism, it was to get more knowledge which was not available on our shores. I can say as a recent graduate of a UK university that this still holds water. It's not as a result of being rich that made me to take this decision to acquire this type of education, but the aspiration to gain knowledge. Besides, this knowledge gained enabled me to run my own business and create employment for 8 Nigerians. So NEXT, the justification for your editorial should focus on such finer points. QED

while i have decided to repress some of my feelings, i still feel its worth pouring salt on the governor's injury: I am in this system as a final year student in one of our own Nigerian universities and i tell u IT'S NOT WORTH IT; I have succeeded only in wasting five years of my precious life; and nothing can stop me from pursuing 're-education' abroad. if i do not become who i want to be, how will i ever be useful to myself and my homeland? There are still young people like me who truly have the love of this country at heart and the only way to achieve our dreams is to become SOMEBODY. Sir, say something else.

el komo...which school did tafawa balewa go to?...just for the records...

I am personally disappointed that your stand on this issue of foreign education is equivocal. You also discounternanced the cultural impact of foreign education in a foreign land. The products of this foreign education would hardly have any empathy to the dreams of a lofty Nigeria. If you care to find out, most of those in foreign land for education are children of the elites, particularly civil servants, who cannot fund the cost of such education, except through corrupt activities. You advocated that the Nigerian eduaction system should be fixed, how? when those who have the mandates and positions to do this have alternatives - send their children abroad! It is now a badge of honour to boast in their midst that my children are all abroad. In my view, while conceding the fact that the rot is a reflection of the malaise in the Nigerian society, a drastic action must be taken, eg non-issuance of passport to those going for eduaction abroad coupled with ban on foreign exchange purchase for eduaction purposes(first degree, to start with). This will force the elites to do something about the education in Nigeria. By the way, do you understand that Nigerian children are subsidising the cost of education in foreign lands? For example, in a class of 25 students in the UK, you only need 10 foreign students to pay for the cost of education for the whole class, because while home students pay about £1,000 tution fee, foreigners are billed £7,000, which are oftened collected in advance. That's why you see the foreign universities coming here in droves, not for anything, but to fund their own education system!

It's interesting that Nigeria does not realize that providing education is in itself a business. I find it strange that there are no private law schools in Nigeria for instance. If we set our minds to it, Nigeria itself could become a destination for the acquisition of education.

Yes, El Komo: I will like to know the answer to that. Which school did "beloved" Tafawa Balewa go to? You can never tell when a question like that will come up in Jeopardy Game Show.

The Ondo state Governor should lead the way and start in his own state. It is a personal choice to send your children abroad for higher education. Nigerian universities where great in 70-late 80s then corruption, bad management and lack of foresight ruined some of these great institutions. After all I had my university education in Nigeria and apart from some minor adjustments I was able to compete and in most cases where better than my European peers. Personally I think Nigeria has too many universities. Teachers/lecturers need to be valued and PAID better. Also getting a university degree is not for everyone. Also many Nigerians study stupid courses like English, Geography, sociology, mass communications and other irrelevant courses that make them unemployable. Granted if you have an interest in a particular subject go for it but just be AWARE your chances of employment are zero. It is similar in the UK. There should be emphasis on REAL PROFESSIONAL COURSES. Also we need to stop this discrimination of people with vocational qualifications. Young Nigerians all want to have office jobs but you need people to get their hands dirty too. We need more artisans. Academics is not for everyone and it does not mean you are less important if you don't have one. 3 years ago I returned home to start a business and I now employ 25 Nigerians and I hope to double that by next year as the business is growing. My staff are a mixture of people with different skills and abilities. 3 out of the 5 senior positions are held by men and women with HND/3rd class degree and one with a first class degree. Many applied with better qualifications that the first two aforementioned, but at the interview stage they could barely use commmon sense to answer scenario based questions despite giving them tips about the interview format. Many Nigerian graduates also lack social and interpersonal skills and the importance of working as team and the most CRITICAL being able to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. When I arrived in England despite a nice juicy allowance from my parents I decided to work before getting my IT job. I worked as a cleaner, postal worker and worked in a supermarket. The skills in managing and dealing with people in these jobs have been invaluable in my working life and now as a business owner. I often wonder what exactly Nigerian graduates hope to learn at the NYSC. NYSC is a good idea but I just wonder if the graduates make use of it in an intelligent way. I had one Unilag guy who had a masters complaining to his brother than he does not know why he was not short listed for the second and final stage of the interview. I basically told him his attitude was wrong thinking that his masters was going to impress me or automatically qulaifies him for teh post. He did badly at the first interview whereas a HND holder was one of the best. Education is important but you need more than that in today's competitive job market. I feel many Nigerian companies, govermental and private are missing out on a good crop of employees based on their misguided thought process about huge emphasis on degrees and irrelevant masters. Look at Bill Gates he left university and in the process of building Microsoft with his partners many who had degrees, they did not look at him and think "ah but dis pesin no get degree". Even most of the expensive private schools in Nigeria their standard is still poor but unfortunately many of their parents are looking more at the prestige of the school rather than the actual quality of education.

truck pusher u are just too funny.after reading your last comment i laugh to the point that my kids asked me what is funny dady. i always like to read your comment .

Even if we are to invest a £100 bn every year for 10 years we will still have dead educational institutions because the leaders are corrupt and incompetent. On a brighter note the Amnesty comission say they will send the militants to purse post graduate studies abroad........do they have school leaving certificates?

niyi dallas...balewa studied at koranic school, bauchi, katsina college, katsina; and spent one year at the university of london, institute of education in 1944...so stop laughing, i knew he was a trained teacher but the school escaped me...the difference between the the three...while zeek was a stowaway and ended up at lincoln, awo was an ass broke bankrupt, who went begging for a loan to study from odutola...and balewa of course got through with full scholarship...

@ Emeka Okonjo: Nigeria does not have enough universities. Consider that our population of 100-150 million is true, then the above statement is true. We need more not less. If the statement that 70,000 lawyers have been through the NLS is true, then there is no way that we have too many universities. I also take issue with your description of certain courses as stupid. They are in fact necessary for the production of well grounded and rounded graduates. Would you rather that Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka not study Classics or English. Please let us be careful. If Nigeria political class had a serious attitude to everything, most graduates would be employed. The deficiencies in Nigerian graduates are reflective of the generally poor basic educational foundation as well as the society as a whole. Such correction takes dogged continuous improvement whose manifestation becomes evident after at least one generation. Political will is all it boils down to.

Emeka made a point that missed almost everybody except, well Jide who read him but ended up picking a less important issue from what he said. The issue is not how many universities you have but how much do the few you may be having making in terms of difference. If you have hundred universities and they are teaching the same thing in terms of quality, your output gets sidelined in the world in the face of those from ten universities that see every student as special and not a member of mass production line in an academic factory. In my comments on what Governor Mimiko said - I wouldnt know whether it is was published - I made the point that the lure of foreign education is rooted in the quality of education you get there. I gave myself as an example. I was a successful journalist in Nigeria before I left for the Federal Republic of Germany many years ago to do maths and physics. I was highly impressed by what I got at the university, that is at the laboratory where at the undergraduate-graduate level we had to do experiments covering optics, mechanics, electrodynamics (quantum mechanics), fluid mechanics to mention a few. During those experiments I could see that what we were using were things I could procure very cheaply, more cheaply if I bought Experimental Kits and just dropped in at a shop around rthe corner. Which I did until I built, amongst others, my own aeroplane. I was also repairing radio and television sets for my fellow-students in the hostel for the joy and well, the money of it. A Nigerian maths professor, G.O.S. Ekhaguere (of University of Ibadan) came to my laboratory room in Goettingen and was highly impressed. Gos, as I fondly call him, was then a von Humboldt research fellow. What was I trying to say with all this? I was trying to say the QUALITY OF EDUCATION POLICY MATTERS. What is Nigeria's Education Policy? I bet it was the same as it was inherited after independence. The same learning by rote. Now, the place to begin is first to overthrow or overhaul Nigeria's education philosophy that produced the educational system. This learning by rote will not do. Read, cram and deliver cannot take Nigeria anywhere. Nigerian education policy should be such that encourages critical thinking and inculcates self-confidence. Yes, an education that tells you to take the plunge by taking the risk. Dismantle that computer, that camera to see what happens if you remove a thing. Through this you get to know what does what. Let Nigerian university laboratories buy second-hand machines and dismantle them. Get hold of the theory which can be applied in million ways but dont forget the practical. Put everything into question. Tell Euclid that he is wrong with his definition of the line because, my! how can two points make a line when the point is dead. Tell you lecturer that he is not getting it. And let the lecturer be ready to learn from the students too. My! As I said in my novel, Dream of Paradise, Africa, Nigeria included is still a virginland. And so like the empty canvas of an artist, Africans can begin anew. Now is the acceptable time to get new foundations for education in form of philosophy of education that can compete - not a copycat like the Nigerian Constitution - with the best anywhere. Beat the Best, that should be the motto of Nigeria's education philosophy that should produce the education policy. Beat the Best is aim for the Everest. If you do that you will reach beyond Kilmanjaro if Everest eludes you. That's the way to go.

@Truck Pusher, I was just about digging into the records to give you that information before I read a bit further to confirm that you had provided the answer. Yes, Tafawa Balewa schooled in UK and that was evident in his diction. As for the difference between these great Nigerians, I daresay that the knowledge they gained was most important. I am not interested in who graduated or was the most distinguished scholar here, as the end justified the means. Awo's indelible mark bestowed on Western Nigeria, thrust that region far ahead of other regions due to the fact that he understood the importance of imparting knowledge, nay, through education. The pen was Zik's armour against the colonial government while Balewa was able to take bold steps in instilling and convincing the suspicious Northern oligarchs about the well meanings of Western education.

He's right. I studies post-graduate/undergraduate abroad, but if you can't provide the required amenities at home, then you are not preparing for the future. The nation will not develop, and better yet, you will see more capital flight, that can be used to upgrade the lacking infrastructure. We have never been prepared! Never.

@Lere: I feel that there should be lots of universities and tertiary institutions: the good, the bad and the ugly. Government funded colleges should of course have a research bent, as well as offering some of Mr. Okonjo's "useless" degrees. Some private universities may also find it useful to do this. There is absolutely nothing wrong in allowing varying types of degree mills to exist, especially if they are private enterprises. Neither is there anything wrong in having Nigerians study abroad-it is a good thing. I agree with Beat the Best, both issues are not mutually exclusive.