You will agree with me that it is not an easy task to spend almost 21 years of one’s life in school to obtain a first degree certificate.
There is no one that will tell you a palatable story about the road down it. Should one talk about the various kinds of unnecessary stress the lecturers in Universities subject one to, or shortage of finance one is bound to face, maybe the examinations anxiety, perhaps the sleepless nights one must necessarily have to satisfy the gods of education? And all other various form of hustling to ensure you come out with flying colors.
‘Thank God, finally, I am now a graduate!’
But to what end?
Are you sure you were well equipped with necessary tools to face the daunting challenges ahead of you in the labor market? Is it even worth it to spend 21 (or more) good years in school to learn how you can get employed instead of how you can be a boss on your own and employ people? Is that what is really required in the labor market? The reality is if all of us are in for seeking jobs as we are being taught who will create jobs? We are being thought in school not to embrace risk at all but to run away from it.
One is not surprised when one sees an engineer being a chief accountant. Why is that so? The answer is simply because he was not taught how he can be creative in his own field, and there is no job available for him as an engineer (because he was only taught how to dream to be employed as an engineer not the other way) and man must “sha” eat, so, he has to look elsewhere.
Over the last few years or so, the number of start-up companies has been on the increase significantly so as the number of wind-up companies. Day in day out, we are having more and more entrepreneurs simply because there is no job – even the so called governments are not up to the task.
Actually, it is a good thing for the economy to have entrepreneurs because this will surely enhance the quick development of such economy. But it is a ‘disma pisma’ that only 10% of these so called entrepreneurs have what it takes to take risk. Only few have the technical know-how of running a business successfully. Fund apart, most of our entrepreneurs are not creative to bring about a resounding and enticing business idea that can wow the public –the ones that have cannot execute them successfully.
But why is this?
I think you should know the answer by now –your forsaken educational system.
You still don’t believe me?
Then continue reading.
HOW THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IS KILLING OUR GENIUSES
It is when I grew up, or perhaps, when I finished university that I knew that the education ought to be abhorred. You are asking, WHY?
It simply because it is not what I was taught in school that I am facing right now –two different things:
- I was not taught that there is no job –the only thing I was being told was to graduate with flying colors then jobs will be looking for me. When I got outside now, reverse is the case. I noticed that most people that we see as successful outside are not even in pursuit of what they were taught in school, but rather, what they learn in the hard way themselves. I have an uncle who has graduated, for more than 5 years, with a first class certificate, but still no job. It is then that I realized that the best entrepreneurs we have in the world are not made in school. Do you agree with me? The likes of Dangote, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg etc. learn entrepreneurship the hard outside the four walls of the school. Bill Gates can proudly say, “I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.”
2. The education system doesn’t teach you creativity, it does not bring out the creativity in you, and it does not teach you how to take risk –was not taught in school that risk is part of life!
Since we were kids, we were sent to prison (I mean school) without the understanding that we need to make some sacrifices in terms of risks in order to get rewards. We were not learning that failure is a part of life but instead we were taught to be afraid of mistakes and the consequences they could bring.
The few creative thinking students among us were less motivated which resulted in them being less talkative, less humorous, and less expressive than they used to be. We were not taught to think outside of the box anymore and were taught that failure was wrong.
On the other side of the coin, failure is something that we should be prepared for and not afraid of. We should be taught that mistakes are just opportunities to learn new ways of doing things so it will be right the next time. We will never think of taking new chances because they have made us see mistake as crime.
HOW SCHOOL GENERATES UNEMPLOYMENT
School, as it ought to be, should solve the problem of unemployment. But it is saddening that school that we rely on is even the basis of unemployment.
Are you asking me how?
Okay then, let us take Africa as a case study.
Two years after every African child is born (about 20 million each, year in year out), they will be enrolled to prison (that is what a friend of mine called school). After some years of learning, these children will be able to read and write correctly, which is good.
Some few years after this stage, they will start to brainwash them little by little.
Which kind of brainwash?
They always and only tell them that they should do well in their academic activities in order for them to secure good job in the future. Since then, the children will be dreaming of working in banks, working in technology companies, being lawyers, being employed in big hospitals, working in oil companies etc. Their thinking will only be in one direction – they never think on how they can make the economy better by building their own companies, by owning refineries, building their own banks, hospitals, by having a gigantic telecommunication company, no they never did simply because they were not taught that way.
In a country like Nigeria, over 200,000 graduates are being produced yearly. And I am certain, virtually all of them have been taught how to be a job seeker, not how to create jobs (me inclusive). Now tell, who will employ all these people?
Did I hear someone say GOVERNMENT?
Or are you saying it is high time they employed themselves?
You mean being self- employed?
Don’t be a joker, someone that has been taught in only one way, i.e., to seek for job, you are now telling him or her to be self- employed, you must be wicked.
Let us take a look at these scenarios.
When a bird gives birth, it teaches its little baby how to fly by putting it on its back till it learns it well. Our home fowl on the other hand, teaches its little chick how to walk around and eat only. These two are the same in every sense (at least both have feathers) just that one can fly but the other can’t, why? This is because it was not taught how to.
Therefore, a chick that is not taught how to fly while it was small is now expected to fly when it is grown up. That is ‘super impossible’
That is how hard it is for our graduates to start running their own businesses, set of people that have been taught how to run away from risk you are now telling them now to embrace it –what an irony!
Graduates were not taught how to think and create values, market them and turn these values into money. They have been trained all their whole lives to think and work in a ready-made business system. Becoming self-employed requires a lot of creativity. You must be able to think, create and sell. Unfortunately, these so called graduates have spent over 21 years in prison (sorry, school) where creativity was never paid attention.
What about entrepreneurship program in school? Don’t even think that can save our graduates from this mess, they can bear me witness. School entrepreneurial program is an utter sham. Ask me why?
Listen, I will tell you. Most of your lecturers that are teaching you entrepreneurship are just like you –they were not taught how to fly and they want to fly. So mostly what they teach is full of theories that they have never put to test themselves. These lectures were written by people who do not know anything about business and being taught by same set of people.
Besides, teaching you entrepreneurship in school is just to fulfill all righteousness of the syllabus; their end game is not to make you entrepreneurs.
On the part of the government providing jobs for job seekers, it will be a dumb notion for you to still be looking forward to that.
You ask me why again?
I will always entertain your questions.
Before governments can employ you, they will have to create up-and-running-profitable businesses. These will enable them to employ hundreds of thousands of job seekers out there. Do they now have any?
The answer is NO.
Are you saying they should build up companies then?
I know your answer will be YES but I am telling you pointblank, they cannot.
Let me say it again, government cannot run profitable businesses to employ you.
Having capital to finance business does not automatically translate to being able to run it successfully, they are two different things.
Government has resources like finance to run business, yes agreed, but that is all they have. Governments are being run by politicians who don’t know anything about business. Most of them are lawyers, engineers, soldier even doctors.
Government cannot create businesses and effectively run and manage them. The few government companies that we have are only surviving because they monopolize their markets.
Dangote as an entity, if you put him up with the government that both of them should establish same kind businesses, you give Dangote $30,000 then government $100,000. Believe me, Dangote will achieve, with his $30,000, double of what government will achieve with $100,000.
Are you following me?
If yes, now,
WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?
In this long essay, I have been able pin-point the reason why there is massive unemployment all around, which our youth that we hope that will save us have not been taught the right way to do so –the school system has not been building them to face the challenges ahead but rather telling them to dodge them. Also, our almighty governments that we rely upon cannot even save us –they fail to build successful businesses that will create jobs and also teaching us entrepreneurship the way they don’t know because people that are running it don’t know.
What is now the way forward as I asked before?
Wherever you spot problem, you will also find solution lying there. Since we identified that the basis of our problem is school then we kill school, I mean this present one, without hesitation.
After this is done, we will now opt for a new-dawn educational system –the educational system that will build students for tomorrow, teach and train them not to be a job seeker but rather a job creator, sparkle creativity in every individual in schools, teach them to be self-dependent and not on the government, encourage them to always read great business books and think creatively
If this idea is embraced wholeheartedly and implemented, we will have real creative thinkers in the labor market, we will have great innovators and business managers and lastly, unemployment will be a thing of the past.
WITH REGARDS TO: Quadri A, Adewuyi, for NB.I. Academy, FOR THE ABOVE INSIGHT.
So, one will ask, what is the true way forward and what do you (I) propose?
I’ll tell you this; you need to become a true Entrepreneur.
Someone will say:
- Being an entrepreneur is hard!
- I have a big dream which comes with a big budget, how do I raise CAPITAL
That is the question I’ve been waiting for; you see there’s no scarcity of money, only scarcity of ideas
Well, I will tell you what my mentor (Mr. David Temitayo Olowe)
once told me, he said, “the money you need to SUCCEED is not in your bank balance, salary or that cash gift you get, the money you need to be successfully WEALTHY is in the pockets of people, you just need to find a way to get it out of their pockets LEGITIMATELY”.
For you to be able to do this correctly, you need to grow in your thoughts, become more and be able to create meaningful content, if you don’t have content, seek out what is lacking in your immediate environment and profer meaningful solution to it.
And in saying this, we will together embark on a personal development program
Then as you are getting trained, we also train you on business and finance and show you a platform that will generate cash for you when you teach other people in your circle to become better because, this is what successful people do, and as such you build a whole new clique of friends and business partners who are really successful.
ARE YOU READY?
TAKE ACTION!
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