Redefining Educational Ideals in humans.

MyPointOfView

Being the lecture delivered by Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy on the whatsapp group, MyPointOfView.

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Good evening everyone
OK, I suppose some introduction is in order here.
I am Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy and I am not a lecturer.
Thank you for the warm reception. I must say that I am quite happy to be amidst you all, who are my learned colleagues.
And I must thank Harnyf for inviting me.
Tonight, I shall be discussing the topic: “Redefining the Educational Ideals in Humans”. I believe that is right Presido?
The topic is quite broad but I shall narrow it down to our immediate society, Nigeria and perhaps Africa.
Do not mind my slow typing skill, I have had a hard day at work and now home I am trying to form genius by soaking garri and typing at the same time. Haha
Well, let us begin properly now
EDUCATION
Education, simply defined, is the process of acquiring knowledge.
It can occur at both formal and informal levels
The formal level being in an education setting or online as we are gathered now
The informal education is the type acquired at home, among peer groups and under the tutelage of other members of your society
Our concern here is with the formal level of education.
The ultimate here is: Why do we acquire education?
Is it necessary?
Must everyone be educated?
I think a good educational system is that which works towards the progress of the human race and society.
And I think education is a necessity for all and everyone should be educated but…
at various levels.
And this is what our education system in Africa has failed to comprehend.
Our society keeps setting wrong standards and compels everyone to follow such standards.
You see, there are two kinds of education
Liberal Education
And Utilitarian Education
With liberal education, you have an education that is gained through the willingness of the learner not because there is a selfish gain attached to it or because it is a means to an end.
It is education for the betterment of the human race and society
Education to douse the flames of ignorance while igniting that of knowledge via the vehicle of curiosity.
On the other hand is the Utilitarian education
This form is carried out because of what is attached to it.
It is an education that is seen as a means to an end.
It is the kind of education target more at giving you a means of survival and placing you at a high position in life.
And that is the kind of education we run now.
I must have you know that all education began with philosophy and philosophy is the “love of knowledge”
Philosophy is not the love of money, it is not the love of position or to become highly placed in life, it is simply the love of knowledge.
It is only through such love that Aristotle became an authority in virtually every field of the academia.
It is through that love that we have the volume of works by Socrates.
And you know the amazing thing, those who study just to have knowledge are most often never rich.
Karl Marx died a debtor
Sigmund Freud was never the richest man of his time, Aristotle might have been a special advisor to Alexander the Great but I never heard that he had an enormous amount of wealth to his name.
Socrates was frustrated into committing suicide
But that is by the way.
Let us return to our sphere
The idea of seeing education for its utility began with the colonial masters who connived with the missionaries to produce Africans who had school certs to work as court clerks and messengers in colonial institutions.
Haaa, and after that what happened?
We left our farmlands and went to schools to acquire white collar jobs.
After all, it was easier and there was money to be gotten
From then, education became a means to an end, that end was the molten god of lead, money!
And that is why parents would scout for the best paying job and channel their children to do something related to that
They want their children to become doctors, lawyer, engineers, pilots without asking the kids what they themselves want to become
It is because these professions are linked to prestige and wealth in the society
At the initial level, it favored all.
This was because there were so many vacant spaces to be filled immediately the colonial masters left the stage for us after independence
Then you graduate from school and the government gives you a job as a director in one of its ministry and they give you a house and car and you are automatically elevated to the level of one of the big man in the society
Think of what it takes now to become a director in any government ministry today?
Na beans, you spend years working your way up and keep acquiring more and more degrees to add to your qualification.
Then we began attain an equilibrium as more and more graduates began to fill the streets in search of jobs.
What we see today is a downturn of what we started.
Too many people pursuing very few jobs.
And that is because we have an educational system that does not teach the engineer how to create jobs for himself but to go seek jobs under another.
Most of us go to school with the mindset of finishing and landing a good JOB, get a fine car and home and get married
It is to get a good job, meaning work in those multimillion Naira multinational oil companies
Established by our erstwhile colonial lords and still run by them
We are programmed to help another create wealth rather than creating it for ourselves.
And that is why most of your first class graduates who you consider genius back at school end up working either as lecturers or in a company earning pittance where their brilliance remains underutilized
This is because their education was seen as a means to an end.
To get a good job
Not to invent or create
Not to add to the body of knowledge.
They only studied hard to pass exams in flying colors.
They have the knowledge but fail to know how to apply it.
They are only useful when working under someone and can not utilize the ideas from school to create something for themselves.
A lecturer of mine would say something and I agree with him
He says sometimes he looks at the Faculty of Law and he is full of remorse for the students, many of whom are already too old but ready to kill for a degree in law!
He questioned the motive of such desperation
Because for him, how can you spend five years studying one course, and it is not even medicine!
Then another year at the law school
One more year for NYSC
Total of 7 years and at the end of the day, most end up in someone’s else chambers keeping the office clean by sweeping it daily.
To him, it is a waste of time.
But I see it as a waste of time because they are too many people running after that degree.
We all cannot be lawyers!
Take for example, my university graduates at least over a hundred law students every year
And we have two government universities in my state, there are also private institutions too
But let us look at the two government universities alone
And let us say both produce 200 graduates of Law every year
Spread that to every local governments in my state and you will have at least 10 lawyers for each local government
And I ask, how many people have issues and run to lawyer to fight for them?
Some cases die at the police station?
And when you think that they are already many other practicing before you entered the scene, how do you plan to cope?
So you turn to the banks seeking a bank job but the competition there is also high because we do not only have this problem with lawyers, all other disciplines are equally facing it!
And that is why you see a graduate of Arabic become a banker.
The problem here is simple
Our society, especially the African society, has made education a yardstick for success!
This is why you hear graduates saying: dem say make we go school, now we don go school no job!
Get this, education is not success!
At most, it can lead you towards it but it does not imply that it is success.
Having seen the problem, what then is the solution?
And here we would see what the true ideals of education should be.
There is need to create a kind of education that can tackle the challenges of the future.
Our education today hold any hope for the future.
It is becoming redundant.
Our education today does not hold any hope for the future
Take for example, why does the drama and theater department in most universities begin studying Movie Making?
Why is the literature department not considering how to write movie scripts?
Universities overseas are already doing these, even at high school level
Why is the medical department not making scientific breakthroughs?
Or our engineering department concerned with the invention of things never before invented to solve human problems at a faster pace?
Robotics is already part of the school curriculum in some secondary schools abroad but have Nigerian universities adopted it?
No!
And it is because our lecturers are afraid of dabbling into areas they know absolutely nothing about
Your lecturer comes to class and reads out the same note he compiled and has been using to teach students the same course since 1991
Not even a change of words!
It is always garbage in, garbage out!
And he expects you to give back to him what he gave you during exams.
Any attempt to show “I too know” will be rebuffed and you will be underscored if you do not end up failing the course.
You dare not go outside what you have been taught!
How many drama and theater students end up in the movie industries as professionals?
No, they have to start learning all over again and start acting as amateurs because it is a different world in the movies and not same as what is done on stage.
I learnt how to write movie scripts after I left school.
You get a nursing certificate in Nigeria and you travel to the US to find out you can not practice with your certificate, not without passing their exams for they do not believe the school you attended has tested you enough.
Our graduates are ill equipped to tackle the challenges of the modern world
About five or six years ago, computer skill was an added advantage for graduates seeking employment and you would be surprised at how many of them find computer very difficult to use.
Secondly, we do not all need to become university graduates
What I think is necessary for everybody is at least a high school qualification.
The government has bastardised education because they placed priority on only university education
This is the reason why polytechnics say they want to be given equal accordance with universities
We used to have technical schools where you learn to create with your hands or repair, where are they today and how many attend them?
How about schools that colleges of education?
Which are meant for teachers.
Today, they have become dumping ground for those who cannot pass Jamb and need the result to pursue direct entry in universities
Quite unfortunate.
These schools were meant to specialize in particular field of knowledge
You want to learn carpentry or architecture, the best place is a technical college.
Unlike the teachers of old, How many of our teachers teach because they love the profession and not the money?
But because of the way the society treat graduates of these institutions, no one wants to attend them anymore.
Government and employers will consider university graduates before someone who graduated from a technical college for a vacant post of an electrical engineer.
We have set the wrong priorities for ourselves as a society
We would not all be having these issues if we all were not all doctors, lawyers and engineers
Parents must stop influencing children in choices of career
Optimal performance and utilization of skill can help in bring about a better society
But that can only be attained when people are left to do what they are most happy doing
A child loves to teach but ends up a doctor because the father wants him or her to become a doctor because teachers are poor
The only way you can best contribute to society is when you are doing that which you know how best to do
At the NYSC camp years back
We were told to join a skill acquisition programme
You can learn tailoring, bricklaying, shoe making, hair dressing, bead making etc
I was livid with anger and refused joining any
The Camp commandant kept preaching, you know there is no job for graduates in Nigeria now, you should start learning a skill
I told my friends who cared to ask me that it is wrong to start telling me now to go learn bricklaying
Or tailoring
Too late
If I had wanted to become a tailor, I would not have wasted four good years of my life at the university and adding strike to make it 5 and half years!
If I invested such years learning tailoring, I am sure I would have become a professional by then
So what are we saying here?
That message is for the younger ones
Those just finishing high school
They need to know that becoming a graduate does not mean success all the way
The government can set up skill acquisition centres to train them for three or four years to become great tailors or engineers
And advise employers to consider their certificate being equivalent to degrees
That way, they would have created a means of survival for them.
They would not even need to join the unemployment market because they would either become self employed and become employers.
You cannot make an old woman grow new teeth.
I think we should round up by saying that to redefine the educational ideals in human, we must seek an education that is capable of assuaging the challenges of the present and the future.
So, if there are any questions, I should like to hear them and where they are not, I should like to say good night and leave you all with the peace of Allah and the angels.
Thank you all. Really happy to be with you all. It is a great honour.

Thank you.

Nb:

It was copied directly as presented.