Just like the topic goes. This article is about Nigerian students and Nigerian Universities. I am a proud Nigerian and will always be. After all, i was born, bred and educated in Nigeria before i crossed over to the " future".

Today, I'm going to tell you my opinion about the future. The future of Nigerian education and youths and the future of Africans in general. I will start by telling you a short fiction.

Sometimes ago, a teacher gave two students; an African and an European boy a homework. She told them to use every source possible to do the homework. On the submission date, the teacher requested the answer and the following conversation went thus

Teacher: what is migration?
American boy: migration is the movement of people from one point to the other.
African boy: sir, i didn't do the homework because i don't have a text book and my parents are not educated so they wont be able to give me the answer.

This is what happens to many african kids in Nigeria. We rely so much on written text book and if we don't find answers to a question, We give up. This makes it impossible for Africans to be innovative. We give up easily and try to encourage ourself by being stagnant in our knowledge acquisition. The European child was able to answer the question because he knew the only source of information was the public and the best medium to seek public opinion was Google. Before google, it was very difficult to acquire information and the side effect of that was a steep development, slow technology updates which makes life difficult. Today, you can do almost anything right from the four corners of your bed.

Don't be surprise to know that 100% of information found on google are public data. Ask google anything and you will surely get an answer. Even the most secret things in your life has an answer. Because Nothing is new under the son, thats why google will always have an answer for you.

Sometime i read some questions i tag " stupid questions" on Nairaland. Even in real life, A common Nigerian argue about informations they can easily find online. Why argue when you can find almost every answer on google. Internet is not only for facebook, twitter or chatting. If you utilize the internet effectively, you will achieve a lot and create a happy future for yourself.

Over here in Europe, an average european student uses google at least 5 times a day. This is because google has the closest answer to all questions. You can try it out now by typing a question on google search. You will be so surprise how many result google will return immediately. I will give you my own tips on how to filter google result and make it work for you in my next article.

"The things you learnt in your first year of University would have been outdated by the time you approach your final year"

This assumption is a fact especially those for students in the IT , Business and medical sector. Why? Because Apple,Samsung,Microsoft and the rest of the technology giants update their product and software almost on a monthly base. Because business are finding it harder and harder to make profit this days so they are seeking for new solutions, new ideas that will minimize cost and increase their profit. Because people are beginning to try new food mixtures, new ways of making love and new ways being happy respectively.

Now lets go back to ASUU strike and the rest of Nigerian educational problem. One of the setbacks in Nigerian education is the inadequacy of information. I used to be a student at one of the top universities in Nigeria. University of Benin with all its glory lack a simple information system. In my last year of study which was in 2008, almost all of the courses i received made use of outdated textbook. So the end result of it all was that " we were solving a 1992 problem in 2008". How then can a Nigerian graduate become innovative. How then will there be a solution to our Nigerian problem when we still live in the past.

Another major problem is that the Nigerian academicians can not/ do not connect theory with practice. A computer science student, never used and doesn't know how to operate a simple desktop computer. Even the Nigerian computer science lecturers dont know how to operate a computer. They teach more theoretical knowledge but fail to practice or are faced with the problem of actually using what they teach about. Im even beginning to link this whole scenario with Nigerian politics. Its a norm that Nigerian politician are good orators that don't do what they promise. This is an educational problem.

Furthermore, educational institution do not connect with business around their environs making it impossible for students to analyze current business problems. Another name for Problem is a case study. Over here in European universities, there is a direct or indirect relationship between educational institutions and companies. When their is a problem /difficulty in a company, the company invites students to discuss, analyze and find solutions. The teacher either pair students into groups and give them a part of that problem to research on it. Thats the way students learn to be creative because they are being given real problems and not just a textbook. Teacher nevertheless, do nothing in school. Their job is basically to delegate and guide students rather than teaching. This process is called learning by development. Almost all the universities in Europe have adopted the learning by development approach.
Another technique of applying the learning by development approach is by imposing a compulsory work placement in all educational institution.

Why wont there be ASUU strike when the leaders them self were taught outdated information on how to govern a country. I wasn't surprise when i read about the Nigerian government official who didn't know the official website of his organization. It wont be surprising if his " Oga at the top" doesn't know the website either.

" the best way to make a Nigerian student innovative and creative is to give him a practical problem"

Nigerian students must stop relying on their lecturer and outdated text for knowledge. There are better innovative ways of learning and it is only when you solve a problem that you become innovative. So why solve a problem that has already been solved by Americans, Asians and Europeans. nigerians and Africans in general must move up to the standards of the Europeans by not relying on the voice of outdated information givers. Nigerian student should learn how to use Google to source for information. Nigerian educational leaders must ensure they build a strong relationship between education and working life.

Rather than spend so much time on facebook, nairaland and other social gathering sites, why not spend some little time asking google some questions.


Mrnestyy is a Nigerian , in love with Google, a future ecopreneur and public service manager who believe in Africa and Africans. If you like my post, please share with other Africans to inspire them. If you are interested in contributing to Africans. You might want to consider becoming a contributor on www.remotivating.com

Respect!!! Nice article, if only many of our youths would sit down and go through it & read meaning into every sentence. I pray all hope is not lost in Nigeria