Not Extra Year for Varsity Graduates! by Salaam Rasak O.

In a recent colloquium, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah, recommended an extra year for every Nigerian university graduate in order to acquire entrepreneurship skills that will make them withstand the rigour of joblessness so pervasive in the labour market. The resolution was made having examined all possible means of resuscitating the dearth of tertiary education in the country.

Anwukah was wrong-headed. It should be categorically stated that keeping the students in universities environments for long is not a solution to the appalling situation. In fact, to denounce his recommendation is to pose several fundamental questions. Are the lecturers that taught the students for four consecutive years also train the students during the extra year? Or will the facilitators be brought from abroad? Besides, is it not the same academic environment devoid of state-of-the-art facilities and where sound learnings are now alien that the training would also be held? More fundamentally, what will be the essence of another one year in National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in which if strengthened will equip the graduates will holistic entrepreneurship acumens? These, among other questions, are stumbling blocks to his indiscriminate recommendation.

More fundamentally, no quality education conveyed for four or five consecutive years leave the trainers with only theoretical understanding. It is self-evident that addressing the problem starts with the transfiguration of our academic curriculum. Additionally, the social, moral and intellectual standards of the lecturers should be put to undiluted check before given them tasks to perform. This is because, the prevalence of poor graduates is a reflection of their lecturers. Discipline, ethics and strong virtues should be upheld and inculcated in the lives of these students.

Worthy of note, however, is that no academic discipline without its own practical ways of tackling problems. This is an avenue of making money after the whole programme by providing solutions to an endemic societal or human challenge. Hence, emphasis should be placed on it rather than over romanticizing the lives of the dead (Plato, Karl Marx, Aristotle and co.). As Universities managements are guilty of financial high handedness and poor management, so also the government that has turned cynical eyes to funding education. Until this is given necessary attention, we may continue to go round in same circle. At a time of increasing unemployment rate, we stand to pinpoint that more than half are actually unemployable. Unarguably, the required skills and practical know-how are glaringly absent. This ugly trend must be changed, but not through an extra year for varsity graduates.

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At a time of increasing unemployment rate, we stand to pinpoint that more than half are actually unemployable. Unarguably, the required skills and practical know-how are glaringly absent. This ugly trend must be changed, but not through an extra year for varsity graduates.