By Olusola Akinbinu

THE speed of information has never been this super-fast. Knowledge revolution has changed the outlook of human societies, altering cultural trends. It is easier today to vary ideas and thoughts, across continents and arrive at the most preponderant. Virtual conference applications and webinars seem to be breaking barriers to knowledge at the most affordable cost. Students now access knowledge at their fingertips, beyond either of the limits of a school curricula or the limit of exposure of a designated tutor.

A few days ago, I put a call to a former classmate who is now lecturing in a newly established Nigerian university. I asked him about his experience since they still conduct online teaching with their students during COVID-19 holidays. In his words, he said, the students are the gainers; the lecturers have to work more. He explained further that the online teaching experience barely allows room for lazy lecturing.

You have to prepare your slides and reference materials up-to-date as students feel far lesser barriers to ask any questions that come to mind. A lot more time has to be invested in studying ahead of the class, by both the tutor and students. An online lecture period accommodates more questions and everyone has more equal opportunity than the physical classrooms afforded.

Students feel the liberty to ask questions that are not directly related to the topic and that inspires others to look in adjoining direction. This twist brings out new useful thoughts for the class to ponder upon for expansion of knowledge views. Norms are broken, innovative thoughts are encouraged. African students were limited to very scarce and expensive textbooks for so many years; many simply recycle old and outdated textbooks, while others make photocopies of same. If these can only ensure that they pass and graduate, that was almost the whole essence of the school adventure.

The ability to function at the pace of the industry, and coping with the technical reasoning of the 21st Century is as good as a different mystical discourse. Hence, the popularity of the derogative slogan: “Unemployable African graduates”. They were actually not trained to be employable but to possess a degree.

We are in a world today where the most productive firms, such as Google, Apple, Starbucks, IBM, concern themselves with workers capacity and not their academic status. Many serious SMEs across the world are also following suit. Why employ a graduate if someone with lower qualification can be trained for the purpose and earn less? Those who wish to be employed as graduate status must be prepared to bring something to the table; beyond the ordinary.

More than half of the job offers advertised on popular job portals such as Jobberman are for services, especially for services deepening the markets of foreign-manufactured products in our local market. Many production companies that existed have taken up the importing of cheaper Asian goods as quick financial returns alternative.

This is owing to unfavourable local business conditions in Nigeria, viz: poor electricity supply, unstable forex, multiple taxation, etc, weak infrastructures, etc. Our local markets become an extension of Asian and European markets; our jobs become exported. A higher percentage of our personal earnings are used to buy foreign goods, ruining the aggregate value of the Naira by each unit of household consumption.

The Nigerian child suddenly finds himself in a pool of economic difficulty but school curricula are not designed to explain the reasons for this predicament. But like a calculated hallucination, our education is designed not to understand local needs and the skill set required to address the daily challenges. University departments are of flamboyant nomenclatures, such that students admitted therein cannot address a three-minute interview of what jobs they can do in the society, and how they will surmount problems. Everyone hopes to join a stagnant civil service; it guarantees a package or retirement benefits.

The reason for the above is not farfetched. The teaching method had not put the societal scenario before the students while training them. They were focused on abstract literature. The perpetuation of this trend is of itself a national laziness. So many people graduate from the university; unprepared for the society. They need help, and can’t be looked upon for help. Why were they trained in the first place if they are to graduate and remain a burden?

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Contrary to the most popular reason, most African parents train their wards through school procuring a job for self-sustenance. Education is actually the enlightening of the mind to be able to solve problems and improve human-living. The margin between these two thoughts have simultaneously created more graduates and more problems in Africa. It is then obvious we mostly don’t understand education.

A primary result of this is the popular desire for migration among the majority of African young people. The danger to this scenario too is that the brightest minds who would have devised the systematic development of Africa are the first to procure visas and residencies abroad. These call for more reasons to study the problems, and evolve more domestic answers, beyond policies, but clear roadmaps that will involve the people.

We cannot keep counting unit personal gains and more compound crises. Privileged political elite declare successes for themselves in the pages of newspapers while socioeconomic situations worsen. According to the 2019 National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, report, Nigeria’s official estimated population is 211 million people; her population under 15 years of age was 100million; so the population under 40 years should not be less than 160 million people. At the continental level, Africa’s youth is forecasted to be 42 per cent global youth population by 2030 at the current pace.

Such a high population of young people should be a blessing, but similar to the concept of oil curse, from the African experience, we are quite experiencing a population curse. Not because of the resources themselves, but our inability to organise them for best use in Africa. The mental and physical energies of  our young people are used to develop Canada, Australia and other nations that are transparent in their developmental programmes.

Many other youths remain in the country participating in visionless-proprietary politics, just as a former governor declared openly in Nigeria that he joined politics because of unemployment and not to solve any problem. He is only being truthful. Other youths become professional pastor entrepreneurs, as that is becoming an easy means of survival. Some simply relapse to criminalism, including sophisticated robbery and internet fraud. The population of young Africans in the world and what they will be doing will become a real-world topic within a few decades.

The answer to these problems will revolve around capacity building and transparent local engagements to solve problems within the African continent. Data about local environmental challenges, housing structures and policies for projected populations in all local governments, transportations models and organised means of service provision, collection and maximisation of environmental resources like rainfall, sunlight, natural vegetation and native plants, etc.

Deliberate redirection of the school curriculum to treat these local challenges will create capacities, jobs, solutions and a new desirable Africa. The proliferation of Internet infrastructure today, regardless of its present limitations, should expose young people to limitless journals, experiences and opportunities to ask questions across the continents.

There are hundreds of environmental structures and resources locally that have potentials for tourism, health, agriculture, power generation, civil constructions and other economic benefits but we have largely been unable to exploit them to develop our local economies. This is largely owing to the fact that there are imported cheap alternatives to these around.

The financial and human costs needed to develop our resources will be much, hence are classified as non-viable for business. On the face value, it really could be such cheaply classified. But looking deeply into imports of job creation, local economic stimulus, industrial, empirical educational mentoring and national planning, it is more beneficial to develop our local resources.

The only critical demand is that we must evolve a deliberate marketing approach that will make the good services of world-class standards for local consumers. We also must create a nationalistic patronage model that will make people believe in these for the essential interest of national development. This marketing tactic is no ordinary dash in a globalised world of today, it demands a lot of knowledge and the internet proves a very promising repository to access evolving knowledge. So the excuses are greatly reduced.

Young Africans, and Nigerians in particular, should brace up for the challenge in their own interest; the sharing formula politics of proceeds of crude natural resources that the elite of today preoccupy themselves with cannot sustain the 160 million young people, even with the average annual population increase of three per cent.

Elite fixing their children and wards in juicy positions in the country, while poverty grows for the wider population. We may be entering into a war situation, to be caused by majorly by ignorance and mental ineptitude. It is important to take advantage of the virtual studies opportunities provided by the internet to learn what the libraries and the universities have been unable to teach.

Ask questions on how many states performing countries have been able to operate Federalism and Autonomy. Bring this knowledge into local questions and start the engagement from somewhere. Lots of selfish political narratives have continually mangled the definition of federalism in Africa, but independent studies and commitment to that which is truth, should pose a glimmer of hope for Africa.

Akinbinu, Executive Director, Centre for Innovative and Inclusive Development for Africa, CIIDA, wrote from Akure, Ondo State

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