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KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future |
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More Vocation in Education
Keynote Address Presented at the One-day Workshop of Ofuobi Women of Enugu
State,
Washington, DC, USA. Saturday, April 2, 2011
Theme: “Empowering the Youth to Better Navigate the Nigerian Job Market”
M. O. EnE, Ph.D.
New Jersey, USA
PROTOCOL
Greetings! Thank you for warming up to our ancestral way of solving social
problems: We talk about them and design solutions. Conferences are not a novel
ideal; many Nigerian national associations convene annually. The novelty of this
gathering is that a group of women in a USA locality convened a workshop to
discuss a specific subject and follow-up with raising funds for implementation.
For the trailblazing theme, for starting something worthy of emulation by all
focused nonprofit, Nigerian associations that litter these United States, I give
kindred kudos to Dr. Chii Akporji, Madam President, her cabinet, and the entire
membership of Ofuobi Women of Enugu State, Washington, DC. I enjoin you to chart
and champion the new course for others to follow … “so others may eat and live.”
PREAMBLE
This presentation will be uncharacteristically short, simple, and straight to
the point: jobs, jobs, jobs! Over the years, communities have steered away from
“government jobs.” In Enugu State, we have a civil-service mentality, where
graduates still stake out the few existing unproductive and unrewarding
“government jobs.” The few openings are so oversubscribed we breed corruption
and other social ills. It’s no wonder “politics” appears to be the only job in
town these days. Time was when a university degree was
enough to transform the life of its bearer. Not anymore: graduates need a whole
lot more than a first degree. In the USA, graduate and professional degrees are
now almost compulsory for many students: MBA, JD, MD, MSW, PharmD, or some
unpaid internships that channel into permanent employment. The trend in
education is the development of career-oriented disciplines where future
graduates hit the ground running: empowered to create jobs and provide
services—not look for jobs. This mindset gave the world Apple, Microsoft,
Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
The soul of this workshop is to change the “employee mentality” and refocus the
eyes trained on civil service careers, through vocational education, the sort of
education that prepares its graduates to become employers of labor and or
sought-after providers of assorted social services—not ill-prepared and
unemployable university-leavers.
PROLOGUE
The effect of education on society is well-documented; we will not be where we
are today without education. Times are changing, and the effects of information
technology must not be lost on anyone anywhere in the whole wide world.
Education is so crucial no society should pay lip service to the education of
its citizens. Indeed, it is criminal to deny any sane soul a decent education. The Nigerian society is immersed in extreme contradictions:
Too many high school students seek relatively few university admission slots.
Few students secure gainful employments upon graduation, especially for
dilettante degrees. This creates on both ends of the academic spectrum a large
army of disappointed denizens, struggling to fit into a society that is anything
but sympathetic. In between, the university curricula still operate largely on
providing employable manpower for public service and for entry positions in
industries unwilling to retrain nonprofessionals. The situation has created a wide
cultural chasm of the very rich and the very poor, with a very negligible middle
class. The need to bridge this gap cannot be overemphasized because therein lies
the solution to many societal ills. As observed by The
New
America Foundation, “Building a large and sustainable global middle class is the
key to both international political stability and world economic growth in the
decades ahead.” A sustainable Nigerian middle class is not only the key to
economic growth, it is also the buffer that ensures the success of trickle-down
economics, safeguarding the rich from angst against capitalism and politics and
the poor from the insensitivity of the rich and political policies. The absence
of a healthy and sustainable Nigerian middle-class, a direct consequence of
failed economic programs of the 1980s and subsequent brain drain, is largely
responsible for the economic complexities crippling our civil society.
PROPOSAL
In various write-ups across two centuries, I have proposed the institution of a
fair and value-based community, property tax to fund free and compulsory primary
education, with a clear goal of achieving 100% literacy in all under-20 citizens
by the year 2020. I have also proposed a statewide lottery to fund free and
compulsory statewide secondary education. I applaud the current regime in Enugu
State for nibbling at the edges of these proposals, even as it ignores funding
sources and therefore struggles with the poor funding from federation accounts.
We should do much more. We must prevail on our political leaders, those with
access to our common wealth, to do the right thing by our future generations,
starting with the youths—our foreseeable future.
University education is not, and should not be, for everyone. Prominent names in
information technology and in great industries before the Internet are college
dropouts and commonsensical, career-oriented citizens. University education for
the sake of parading degrees is obsolete. Our universities have become
warehouses for stemming the tide of unemployed and unemployable young ones; at
most, they serve as stepping stones to professional and terminal degrees. The
time has come for a change of course with vocational education tailored to
establish businesses that provide essential services.
On Sunday, January 21, 2007, I published the second installment of
“A shout-out to Sullivan:
An open memo to the next Governor of Enugu State [See
www.kwenu.com]
Among many other proposals, I submitted:
·
Establish community colleges in all local government areas to specialize in
providing two-year remedial courses for those wishing to pursue degree courses,
certification courses in professional trades, and special skills in the
following areas as needed: nursing assistants, hairdressing, auto mechanics,
construction, civil maintenance, pharmacy assistants, dental assistants, IT
specialists and web designers, movie making, etc.
If Ofuobi did not take from the idea from my proposal, then great minds still
think alike! I am happy that the pilot program is set to locate at 9th
Mile Corner, probably the busiest vehicular junction in Africa: an evolving town
sitting on road corridors from Abuja and Lagos, and it is within bike-ride of
five local government areas or counties: Udi, Ezeagu, Enugu North, Igbo Etiti,
and Oji River. I have proposed a master plan for the town and renaming it
“Amaonoh,” in honor of well-known Waawa idol, Chief C. C. Onoh.
PROGRAM The proposed College of Vocational Education (COVE) will
provide academic resources for motivated students to explore career goals and
establish pilot programs. In the process, the College will generate funds for
its operations and achieve self-sustaining status in no distant future. The
functions of the College will include but not limited to:
1.
Development of
service-oriented skills and hands-on courses in areas that utilize local
technology and materials;
2.
Institution of fundamentals
of franchising and stock markets, and development of business models to replace
antiquated one-man operations popular with Nigerians, especially Ndiigbo;
3.
Sourcing of a bank of
scholarship-award opportunities and study loans to benefit students of
outstanding intellectual and technical abilities;
4.
Establishment of a testing
center with cast-iron provisions to guard against compromising the integrity of
tests, which is the major reason many such centers relocate outside Nigeria;
5.
Founding of exchange
programs with other technical colleges worldwide and hosting of
visiting/sabbatical professors during the summer;
6.
Researching pilot projects
geared towards standardizing ethno-pharmacological products, musical
instruments, and other cultural artifacts, and creating outlets for such
products;
7.
Development of new areas of
study; for example: Cyberology, the study of cyberspace (the Internet) and
related information-technology
issue;
8.
Provision of student support
services, where peer tutors work with fellow students or high school students
for work-study stipends;
9.
Training in hardware
maintenance for the growing information technology, cell phone technology,
website design and hosting, e-commerce, etc.;
10.
Development of special units
capable of handling assorted outsourced services from around Enugu State, other
Nigerian states, and from outside the country.
PRODUCTS Beyond being an academic resource center that offers student
support services and vocational training in hands-on job-creation initiatives,
the College (COVE) will be active in interactive alumni contacts and in
profitable investments. The College should be enterprising enough to invest in,
and reap from, its innovative projects sustained by profit-making prospects and
with funding from philanthropists and proprietors of big businesses that desire
healthy service industries. COVE will push policy proposals that create enabling
environments for small-scale businesses to grow and to serve the people better.
Example: government could mandate a certain level of training in ethics of every
service trade, renewable certification, and basic malpractice insurance for
entertainers, patent medicine retailers, mechanics, hair dressers,
cosmetologists, hoteliers, dental hygienists, etc. The fear of losing one’s
license will minimize many malpractices practices prevalent in service
industries, from the mortuary attendant to the commercial motorcyclist. It is
often not understood in our social structures that communication skills,
etiquette, civility, and self-esteem are enhanced and better embraced when
taught in a structured environment among peers.
POSTSCRIPT Ofuobi Women are on a great track.
This is an idea that must be emulated; therefore, you must make a success of it
so seventeen counties in Enugu State could copy and reproduce the pilot.
A good product sells itself; make this product go viral in
Nigeria and across ECOWAS sub-region of Africa. I thank you all for listening,
and I enjoin all attendees to donate cheerfully to the implementation of the
workshop’s core idea: in my estimation, more vocation in education.
© MOEne, 4/2/11 |
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