FOUNDER
and Executive Chairman of Abion Consulting, Mr. Davis Oni, has deplored
the emphasis placed on university degrees, insisting that the practice
has been responsible for the high rate of unemployment among university
graduates in the country.
Oni, in an interview with The Guardian,
also asked Nigerians to think about what could be responsible for the
excellent performance of Nigerian students in foreign universities, in
contrast to what obtains at home. According to him, students who study
abroad excel because of the quality and method of teaching and learning,
including materials, laboratories, workshops and other resources.
"If
you go to Britain,” he observed, "they try to adjust their educational
system to the political and economic realities of their country. For
example, if you are looking for a plumber or electrician, where are the
institutions where you train plumbers and electricians here in Nigeria?
But the United Kingdom, United States (U.S.), Canada, Germany and
Australia have institutions that train and certify this category of
people.”
Oni argued that the Nigerian mentality that everybody
must get a university degree was faulty. "A good plumber could earn
more than a university professor in the UK,” he asserted. "The plumber
is trained in the technical college and is he is happy to be a plumber.
Here, everybody is running after university degrees. Government has to
fundamentally develop a policy on education and be determined to provide
the proper level of funding needed to execute the policy. The private
sector should also be encouraged to play a key role,”
Oni, who
studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Greenwich, UK with a
scholarship from the British Petroleum Co. Ltd, added: "Success is
equal to opportunity plus capability. Many Nigerians have the
capability, but they do not have the opportunity when they are here in
Nigeria. So, when you add their capability to the opportunities that are
open to them when they are in the UK, I am not surprised that they
excel: World-class libraries, good lecturers, good facilities and
excellent environment.
Describing the UK as the perfect
destination for studies, he maintained that his consulting firm is
selective in terms of the countries it sends Nigerian students to.
"Nigerians tend to love everything foreign. Whenever some students talk
to me, I always ask them whether they want to go abroad for the hope of
heaven or for the fear of hell; hope of heaven because there are better
libraries and better laboratories, and so on or the fear of hell because
there is no electricity here and you are tired of armed robbers and bad
roads. I always appreciate a situation where students want to go abroad
for the hope of heaven.”
He continued: "Once you get your
qualifications from a top British University, you are from a world class
university and you can get a good job anywhere. If you have an MSc or
PhD from, say, Glasgow University, you are simply irresistible in terms
of employment. There is nowhere in the world you cannot get a job. Some
of the Nigerian Universities are very good and well known abroad, while
others are not. So I think the craze for foreign education arises from
the fact that people know that if you struggle and make a good grade
from a British University, you are more or less made for life.”