Many influential people in government and the private sector in Nigeria have said repeatedly over the decades that the unemployment of university graduates in Nigeria is a consequence of a mismatch between what is needed and what is produced. Nigeria has been experiencing mass unemployment and stagnating and not making the desired progress. Can the Nigerian educational systems still play a principal role in solving Nigeria’s key economic problems? This article discusses education, what it is, what it is not and the great role it can play in promoting rapid growth, industrialisation and development in Nigeria.

Our research works in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, showed that most European nations are about 2000 years old whereas most Asian nations are about 3000 years old. Most Western nations and some of the Asian nations have advanced in science; they are, therefore, industrialised and rich. On the other hand, Nigeria and all other African nations have agricultural/artisan economies, they lack scientific knowledge and skills; they are non-industrialised and poor. The main challenge confronting Nigeria, as such, should be getting industrialised. Our research results also suggest that the variables that should guide planning for industrialisation or determine the level of industrialisation are: 1) N – the number of people involved in productive work or employment in a nation; 2) M – the level of education/training of those involved in productive activities in the economy and of the people of the nation; 3) L – the linkages among the knowledge, skills, competences and sectors of an economy; 4) r – the learning rates or intensity in the economy and especially among the workforce; and 5) n – the experience of the workforce and the learning history of the society. All the variables are related to the learning-man and learning-woman. Moreover, the higher are the values of the variables, the better is the economy. So, it is learning that is the fundamental basis of development. An economy achieves the modern Industrial Revolution (IR) when the five learning-related variables attain critical values.

Learning has two parts: education and training. Education is institutionalised learning in which those involved in the process acquire fundamental principles or theoretical knowledge. Education equips the learning individual with knowledge and develops the mind and character. Education equips a person with the capacity to think and reason, so as to be able to provide theoretical solutions to present and future problems. Education is different from training and manpower development. Education, training and manpower development are the three different parts of the human development process a nation must emphasise equally to promote rapid economic growth, industrialisation and development (Okunrotifa, 1978).

Training is a scheme designed to generate expertise for skills needed to perform a particular job or series of jobs (Coombs, 1973). Training prepares a people for work and life (Kanawaty, 1985). Training is generally through practical exposure to job, or informal institutions established for the purpose of providing exposure to required skills. The emphasis in training is on practical work and demonstration. Anyone who acquires education, alone, or acquires practical skills, alone, is a mediocre person. Nigeria has a mediocre workforce. Education, alone, coexists with mass unemployment and poverty. This is the situation in Latin-America and Africa today.

Manpower development (MPD) encompasses the various aspects of preparing the people who have the necessary knowledge, skills, experience and competences for the proper functioning of an economic system. It poses the challenge of developing the necessary quantity and quality of people for social, economic and political development of a society. It goes beyond investing in formal education (Okurontifa, 1978). MPD includes investments in education and training by government and employers of labour. It also includes investment of time, effort, determination and money by individuals and groups of people on developing competences/capabilities to do things, including production.

What were the experiences of European and Asian nations with education? They neglected education for thousands of years and learnt laissez-faire and very slowly and developed very slowly too. Britain had no public educational systems when the nation achieved the first modern Industrial Revolution (IR) in the period 1770-1850 (Gregg, 1971; and Dent, 1975).

Those who are talking of unemployable university graduates in Nigeria are the people who erroneously believe that industrialisation is a matter of technology transfer. The unemployment Nigeria is experiencing is indeed the cardinal symptom of stagnation. Unemployment is only a symptom. Growing economies demand employment of all categories (Lewis, 1972). Stagnating nations experience mass unemployment. Britain and other European nations as well as Asian nations experienced mass unemployment problems for centuries though they had no educational systems. So, it is not education that creates unemployment. When Britain achieved the modern Industrial Revolution (IR), the adult males and females in the nation were not enough to fill the job openings that were created. Industrialists then resort to employing children to work for many hours in the day. That was the basis of the scandalous child-labour associated with the early times of the European IR. Industrialization is a learning and capability-building process; it is the transformation of an agricultural/artisan society into a productive society. The focus in Nigeria now should be to use education to produce those who would transform Nigeria speedily. Education should not be designed to satisfy those who come to do business in Nigeria who would prefer that Nigeria remains a mere market. Nigerian universities should not teach Nigerian Breweries’ chemistry different from Dangote Cement’s chemistry; they teach fundamentals. It would be against the principles of development for our university graduates to fit into the activities of any of those technology transfer-companies in Nigeria without training. When an educated person receives training, he or she then possesses both fundamental principles and complementary practical skills and achieves the independent thinking status (ITS). Nigerian universities and all other universities in the world teach fundamental principles; no university produces experienced engineers or scientists or economists.

Nigeria needs a complementary training scheme for acquiring basic practical skills for all graduates of university education in Nigeria. This is the mobilisation programme Nigeria needs today, not entrepreneurship, not self-employment of youths. Nigerian university graduates, especially the scientists and engineers, should learn on-the-job in artisans/craftsmen workshops, construction and factory floor work settings, and all other places where skill-acquisition opportunities abound, so that they can acquire complementary practical skills and achieve the ITS and become the industrialisation vanguards. Can you imagine what the situation in Nigeria would be when thousands and millions of Nigerian scientists and engineers are able to do all the things our wonderful artisans are able to do and more and know how all the things Nigerians import work and are made? The programme should be financed by government and the private sector to sustain the interests of participants and discipline in it so that the objectives can be achieved readily. Also, the programme should last long enough to impart adequate complementary skills.
Ogbimi can be reached via:
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