Why Nigerian Students Aren’t Prepared For The Future.

Education is the best legacy. I wonder if this is still true in the Nigerian context. Nigeria has a vibrant population, a rich cultural heritage, and a great love for education – we have been told many beautiful stories by our parents on how getting educated was quite “the” experience; from the free meals to the access to scholarships and the value of the knowledge they got and how it brought them relevance immediately after school. 

Today these stories sound like mere fairy tales, causing the present generation to develop the slang ‘school is a scam’ and you really can’t blame them as we all are witnesses to the sharp decline in our educational standards and the resultant (prevalent) moral decadence in our society. 

Don’t take my word for it, do a quick survey. How many people do you know (yourself inclusive) who are earning a living from what they studied in school? What is the allocation for Education in this year’s budget? 

To prepare students for the future, it is important to address the shortcomings that hinder their growth and potential whilst adapting our curriculum to deal with the obvious flaws in the system and position the average Nigerian student to solve the now and future problems. 

Here are some of the areas I believe can be improved in preparing Nigerian students for the future

Quality vs. Quantity

The Nigerian education system has sadly become a shadow of itself. It grapples with a divisive preference for quantity over quality. The focus on enrolment numbers often overshadows the need for impactful learning experiences. Education should be a balanced mix of both the experience and the activities that happen in the classroom. The current school system has been built like a funnel; receiving large intakes but churning out a few students per year. Every course is in a race to get accredited and stay accredited through the amassing of students without a care if they produce excellence or not. Imagine an average lecturer in Nigeria with students sitting on the floor with some students arriving 4 hours before the lecture time in order to get space to sit in class. The school system should begin to channel its energy into absorbing only the number it can cater for while the government begins to create more specialized tertiary institutions.

Specialized Institutions

Many Institutions in Nigeria have lost relevance and touch with the future and so cannot offer the students the necessary skill set to conquer the challenges of tomorrow. It was Ibukun Awosika who said that every 5 years a course studied in the university becomes irrelevant and she went further to say that the time frame has reduced from 5 years to a year. This assertion shows that there is a sense of urgency with which our institutions need to be revamped with the mindset to solving future problems in Nigeria. An example is the current challenge of leadership in the country, there is a need for institutions that would focus on leaders of the future, churning out the best of the best as the next set of leaders.

Outdated Curriculum and Learning Crisis

Have you ever wondered about ‘Error due to parallax’ and if it ever had any relevance to what you do now as a banker or doctor or even an uber driver? 

These are the challenges; our curriculum was designed to resolve challenges that are out of date and students begin to fail in life long before they graduate from school. 

Our curriculum needs to be infused with courses on emotional & financial intelligence, survival skills etc.  The educational curriculum should be adapted to encourage each child to be in constant competition with his/herself and not the other person- each child striving to be better than they were the previous day.

School out of the School walls- The AI Revolution

The world has taken a very strong step into becoming a global village through the advent of Artificial Intelligence(AI). The current AI revolution is a chance to transform our educational sector and bring it into the future by leveraging AI to train and improve our current students, bringing to life all that was once in textbooks. AI is still in its nascent stage and needs the contribution of the current generation to its development.

It is incumbent that we prioritize the future and give education the front row seat it deserves across board. As we look towards the future, we must prioritize quality over quantity, invest in educational infrastructure, and upgrade the quality of our curriculum leveraging Artificial Intelligence. Only then can we empower our youth to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

What other things do you think can be done to improve the Nigerian educational system? Tell us on the Fusion app.