CredoWriters: Wakdok, Samuel Stephen.
I am an ardent believer in education, at least my parents made sure I had the best I could get in terms of education from elementary through tertiary schools. Education can never be under rated, it was not in the past and it should not be in the present day because it holds the key to the future. More ever than not we live in a knowledge era where technology and science, art and culture, medicine and literature have come to redefine man’s existence. Primarily man looks ahead and hopes to be better than what he is. Education has proven to be the greatest source of white collar jobs. We grew up to know that our liberation from poverty lies in education. We were taught and told to read well and pass our exams to enable us to get good jobs and pay our way through life. That exactly is also where our educational system failed us. We were not taught to be independent but rather to depend on good jobs {created by others} which takes away our ability to be creative. We were not taught to create value but rather to become part of the value chain as employees. This made us to look down on blue collar jobs; this made us to become lazy in our minds even when we know that the jobs are not available or sufficiently available.
After going through three semesters of MBA class in Nigeria, I eventually realised I was only groomed along the traditional Nigerian educational system. More talks than action, more exams than knowledge. I sit pondering at my skills if at all I have any and none was honed out by my education. I take my shoes to the cobbler for a fee; get my hair cut by a barber, my clothes sewed by tailor and make my furniture from the carpenter. I get a mechanic to check and work on my car, a plumber to fix my water pipes and an electrician to work on my lights. I buy CDs of musicians and DVD plates of actors. I take my family to the studio for photo shots or to the pictures to watch movies. We pay the caterer for party rice or the baker for birthday cakes. We buy basket from the weavers and pay for knitted cardigans. The painter comes in to paint the stained walls while the bricklayer mends the fence. The technician works on the air conditioner and generator, the vulcanizer has to patch and pump the tyres while the DJ burns the song on a CD plate. All I do is to spend the income I earn from my white collar job as payment to others for their services. How then can I save; of course my income will always fall short of my expenditures. If I can not save how do I invest, if I do not invest how can I break the cycle? If only our education had taught us some bits of skills or vocation? If only they taught us how to create jobs and not just to get good paying jobs?
This is the time to re appraise our system of education and incorporate into our curricula the need to be self reliant, the need to depend less on white collar jobs, the need to be entrepreneurial and industrious. Students and our children must be encouraged to realise their skills and harmonise them. Specialists can help our children discover their hidden talents, most especially we as parents and guardians must help our children and wards to nourish and develop their skills maximally. We should not look at any skill as dirty or menial and therefore undeserving of our western education oriented children. The world is shifting and only those who can unlock their potentials discover their skills and develop their talents to create or add value would step into that rich future. These skills will help guarantee multiple income streams which is the anti dote for economic deprivation or stagnation.
This is not meant to discourage the pursuit of education in any way (so please do not dump your MBA, rather dump any kind of mental deceit that makes you believe education alone holds the key), but to make us realise that we need what I dub the “double strength strategy”. Skills without education limit our horizon, and education without skills makes us too dependent on paid employment. The two therefore should be pursued and attained, and if well harnessed it will be the secret to a life of wealth and comfort. Apart from the monetary value of exploiting our skills and creating commercial value, the satisfaction derived from seeing our skills/talents coming to life is exhilarating unimaginable. The art of selling is also a skill, music and sports are also talents. Painting and sculpture, comedy and acting, baking and decorations, production of hand made cards and knitting, photography and even writing are all very viable talents to tap from. Discover a skill or talent if you have not, rediscover yours if you have allowed yours to go dormant and encourage people around you to explore theirs.
As you pay others for their products let others pay to get yours too. Let our schools not only teach us to pass exams and get good jobs, let us teach and be taught how to understand, pass exams and create the jobs. We must not repeat the mistakes in our children where we were restricted to concentrate only on academics at the expense of other skills or vocations which has become the bane of our ingenuity.
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