Today, we witness another titanic battle between two pillars of our educational system. As with the purpose of the interschool debate, the debaters aim to enlighten us while trying to book a place in the next round. With a welcoming heart, the coordinators and judges invite all intellectuals from other sections of nairaland and of course, from this very education section.


UNIOSUN(supporting ) vs LAUTECH (opposing)


Topic: The government is solely to blame for highunemployment rate in Nigeria.

Cordinator:
Fynestboi
Abu Mikey
Jude P

Judges:
Mazi Omenuko
Aluta continua

Date: Fri.,27th of December.

Time: 5pm-8pm

Venue: nairaland education section

For more fixtures, click here

PROCEDURES
4:55 – Debaters and judges take seats, register presence, while schools post their school Anthem

5:00 – Coordinators declare the debate open

5:00pm – 5:20 - Debaters post their arguments. Within 15 minutes. Better if less than 750 words to make it easier for judges to read all, but no harm making it longer, but it must not exceed 850.

5:20 – 6:20pm - A debater takes on his opponent, attempts to puncture his opponent’s points. This a debater does by quoting, highlighting the area to puncture and countering it i.e regular way to reply on Nairaland. While this is going on the judges can take their time to go through the write ups by the debaters. And also Debaters respond to punctured areas in his earlier arguments. He may buttress further. At this time frame.

6:20 – 6:40pm – Judges post questions to debaters either based on what the debater has posted or just reasonable question within the theme. Judges should be specific as to who they are posting the questions to. E.g “Mr ...., could you expatiate what you meant by so so so? or ...., pls give examples of your claim that xxxx”. This is not compulsory. A judge that doesn’t have question to post to the debaters need not do so.

6:40 – 7:00pm – Debaters respond to questions raised by judges

7:00 – 7:20pm – 2 Questions will be entertained from the audience i.e viewers. This will be based on ‘fastest hand’. The coordinators will announce ‘audience, you may now ask your questions’. After the 2 questions have been posted, any other viewer-post will be hidden.
NOTE: -The judges and audience can throw their questions without quotations but the contestants should answer
with quotations and separated for each questions.

7:20 – 7:30 – Debaters respond to audience questions and concludes their arguments. Debaters who were not asked any questions can still conclude his/her arguments.

7:30 – 7:40 – Judges compile the scores and mail to coordinators: humblejnr@gmail.com

7:40 – 8:00pm Coordinators announce results. Thread thrown open for regular Nairaland discussion.

JUDGING CRITERIA (5 marks each)
1. Presentation (opening, flow, closing,
response to judges questions,
audience questions and contestants
rebuttals)

2. Logic of arguments

3. Strength of facts, examples, cases.

4. Persuasiveness

5. Demonstration of knowledge and
understanding of the subject

RULES

1.) Two contestants representing their school in this Interschool Debate Elimination stage will have to confirm their availability for the debate a day before the debate proper. Failure to do so will result in the defaulter been disqualify and the opposing or supporting side that duely declare availabily will automatically be declare as the winner.

2.) The recommended font size is the default size (size 8.) and the colour is GREEN for the supporting side and BLUE for the opposing side. Please note that you are to use the designated colour all through the debate period.

3.) The essay should be min. 750 max. 1000 words .

4.) The use of SMS language and abbreviations are strictly forbidden.

5.) All materials used should be properly referenced at the end of the essay.

6.) All essays, responses and conclusion must be submitted within the stipulated time frame stated in the time schedule as posted by the coordinator

Please while the debate is going, only the debaters, judges, coordinators, Supermods(if need be) can post. It is only at the audience question window that a viewer can post on this thread. Pls let's comply, default attracts 3 hours ban(duration of the debate).

You can however comment simultaneously at thePlanning thread



Thank you.



Debate starts by 5:00pm on FRIDAY.

Come and witness the mother of all e-debates on the biggest section of the biggest online forum in Africa.

taiwoliu rep lautech.. Opposing d motion wch states: government is solely to blame for high unemployment rate in Nigeria.

...

Lautech second speaker please post your argument.

Fynestboi, change sapianta opening argument to supporting, not opposing, he said you changed it again, please do change it and hide this post. Thanks.

Done.

Moving to the next round in the next 5mins.

Lautech second speaker we are still waiting for u...

I guess the second speaker is absent...

Debaters can now begin to puncture opponents' arguments and respond to their punctured arguments. You have 1 hour for this.

Thanks

Fynestboi: Debaters can now begin to puncture opponents' arguments and respond to their punctured arguments. You have 1 hour for this.

Thanks

what are the debaters waiting for we dont have much time.

@Taiwoliu,

Who's responsibility is to create an enabling environment if you say the government can't do that? If the government can't even protect its own oil pipes and wells, how then are investor's life and property going to be guaranteed? Who are those that are engaged in the oil bunkering? Its the Youth, if the government had provided or create an enabling environment for them they wouldn't have resulted to crime and other vice.

Who do you think its to be blamed for the rot in our educational system if not the government, our higher institution are under-funded and we expect to produce top-notch graduate. Nigeria youth are not lazy, in fact we are among the most hardworking youth but there's little we can do since the government can't create an enabling environment to bring out our potentials.

My question you now is: Who is responsible for creating an enabling environment in country?

Taiwoliu emphasised about engineering students on IT not being able to identify a spanner and a wrench. Let me ask you, who is to blame for this? a government that couldn't spend 26% of its budget on education, employing more lecturers OR the students?

All protocols duely followed and due apologies to all concerned for being unpunctual to this debate.
Without wasting any more time- I shall get to the point quick.
Unemployment in the general sense is the situation of being without work. It is a problem which has been with us for much of human history (Ashton, 1986). There are no regular and reliable statistics on the distribution of unemployment in Nigeria. Measurement problems are magnified in the case of developing countries in which Nigeria is one, because self-employment and work within the family are much more prevalent than in industrial countries. For instance, for many women, the distinction between working on a family farm, (therefore being a "worker" and taking care of the home, (Hence being "inactive", is tenuous as is the distinction between working being unemployed and working in the informal sector for many men.

So what Factors Promote Unemployment?
Unemployment in Nigeria has been hindered by five major factors: structural, cultural, lack of political will, skewed budgetary allocation and poorly coordinated intervention programmes.

Structural Factors
Structural inhibitors in the growth of unemployment has its origin in the Nigerian education policies since independence in 1960. Between then and now Nigeria has introduced and implemented not less than three different educational policies. These are the 7:5:2:3; the 6:3:3:4, and now the 9:3:3:4 (elementary, secondary and university). There is now a clamour for the re-introduction of Higher School Certificate (HSC) program which was a two-year post-secondary programme that prepared students for university education. This reaction followed the very poor performance of secondary school leavers (87% failure rate) in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in 2010. One of the major problems of past education policies stems from the fact that new policies are not allowed to run their full course before they are changed. What this means is that some of the past policies may not have been well conceived before implementation.

Cultural Factors and Get rich Quick Syndrome
Culturally, many youths and their parents believe that the only sure route to success is pursuing career in the elitist professions such as medicine, law and engineering regardless of whether they have the aptitude, interest or resources.

This mindset is fuelled further by loss of the age old value system which tied dignity of labour to wealth. People still perceive artisans and craftmen as social outcasts who should remain permanently at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Society now seen to worship wealth (regardless of the source) and churches and communities reward some of these questionable acquisitions with Kinghood and chieftaincy titles respectively. A visit to a typical auto-mechanic garage in Nigeria will show that unlike what used to be the practice whereby a master auto-mechanic had 3 to 7 apprentices under his tutelage, one will be lucky to find one or two learning the trade. Others will opt out after 3 to 6 months to start riding motorcycle taxi, (Okada) to start making money, while the few who remain do not stay long enough to acquire the skills to be proficient in the trade. It is doubtful if Nigeria will still have artisans and technicians in another 20 to 30 years.

Lack of Political Will
The neglect of vocational/technical education has been robbing the nation of the potential contributions of its graduates to national growth and economic development. The inability of policy makers to make rational and informed decisions continue to affect the rate of progress of the Nigerian Nation. As Dike (2006a) has noted, the underdevelopment status of Nigeria could be linked to the neglect of its educational institutions. Although science and technology has been a part of Nigeria’s National Policy on Primary education (NPE) since 1981 (Moja, 2000), like every other public policy, implementation have always been the major problem. Consequently, the society lacks competent artisans such as bricklayers, carpenters, printers, auto mechanics, laboratory and pharmacy technicians and so on.

Skewed Budgetary Allocations
After China and India, Nigeria is the fastest growing economy in the world with a growth rate of 7.2% (Yusuf, 2012). This figure is expected to increase to double digit growth typical of the Asian tiger economies. This growth rate is being achieved despite the energy challenges, financial crisis and global economic meltdown.
Although Nigeria’s economy is projected to continue growing, poverty is likely to get worse as the gap between the rich and the poor continue to widen. One reason may be attributed to the perennial defective leadership, corruption and poorly articulated policy implementations. For example, the Federal Government’s share of distributable revenue is 54%, states 25% and local government 19%. Out of the share accruing to the Federal Government, only about 20-30% go to capital expenditure, while the rest go to recurrent and overhead. On the other hand, states like Lagos allocate between 40-45% to capital expenditure annually. It can be argued that there is an inverse relationship between income and capital expansion. Therefore, by committing more resources to infrastructure you indirectly impact on incremental incomes of the citizenry.

Poorly Coordinated Intervention Programmes
As nations advance into the 21st century governments are shrinking and shedding the toga of major employer of labour. However, the rate of reduction vary from country to country but dictated by what is perceived as political and social consequences. This partly explains why in most developing countries the government is the major employer of labour. The NEEDs document (2004) states that “Human development will definitely be grossly undermined and impaired without employment”. Awogbenle and Iwuamadi (2010) argued that the problems of mass unemployment, low productivity high inflation and poverty will depend on how speedily it is able to develop the millions of its labour force into a knowledgeable and skilled people needed for the required change.

Skills acquisition as a veritable vehicle to promote employment generation has been a part of the policy thrust of past Nigerian governments. However, most intervention programmes have been poorly coordinated and in some cases either overlap or contradict one another. Beginning with the Directorate of Food Road and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Family Support Programme (FSP) and now the National Economic Empowerment Development Strategies (NEEDS), SEEDS and even the establishment of People Bank of Nigeria (PBN) are some of the intervention programmes that were intended to promote employment generation. Most of the past intervention programmes were implemented as ad-hoc,. poorly coordinated and marred by corruption and inefficiency. Consequently, rather than reduce unemployment, the reverse seem to be the case.
The Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS, 2006) estimated the poverty level at 54%, implying that approximately 75 million Nigerians were unemployed. This figure is expected to be higher when lay-offs and outright closures due to the global economic meltdown since 2008 are considered. Government effort at promoting skill acquisition through the establishment of vocational training institutions have also not yielded the desired result, eventhough Osunde and Omoruyi (2004) note that more vocational skills training are being established. Although more vocational training institutions are being established the youths are not motivated to take advantage of opportunities associated with vocational education due to some of the above reasons. Statistics show that although the number of technical/vocational colleges have increased since 1991, the number of students enrolled has been declining since 1997, while enrolment in secondary schools have been increasing during the same period.One explanation for this is negative perception on many youths and even their parents towards vocational education. For example, it is common to find many Nigerian legislators donate motorcycles and pepper grinding machines to youths in their constituencies under the name of “youth empowerment”.

What I have done is to show all the contributing factors of unemployment and it is clear that the government alone is not resonsible for unemloyment in the country.


I had to type this at on someone else's tablet just now. Electricity is at the worst possible condition here in the past few days and I couldn't access my already written essay that's on my phone. Apologies

Taiwoliu respond to your rebuttals

@larride and sapientia1: it is the duty of the government to create schools, but not responsible for how well you prepare yourself. Lecturers only give you basics, its up to you to differentiate yourself out of your pairs by going the exta mile because you and probably other thousands are taught the same thing.
@larride, security is not for the government alone to tackle but also, the citizens must give information to security agents when they suspect abnormalties in their environment

ojoawo:
So what Factors Promote Unemployment?

I know its not time for judges to throw questions; but its obvious the quoted topic above is what you wrote on and not the topic that has been slated for debate.

You may wish to respond to this so I can adjudge properly.

larride: @Taiwoliu,

Who's responsibility is to create an enabling environment if you say the government can't do that? If the government can't even protect its own oil pipes and wells, how then are investor's life and property going to be guaranteed? Who are those that are engaged in the oil bunkering? Its the Youth, if the government had provided or create an enabling environment for them they wouldn't have resulted to crime and other vice.

Who do you think its to be blamed for the rot in our educational system if not the government, our higher institution are under-funded and we expect to produce top-notch graduate. Nigeria youth are not lazy, in fact we are among the most hardworking youth but there's little we can do since the government can't create an enabling environment to bring out our potentials.

My question you now is: Who is responsible for creating an enabling environment in country?

I am really worried if this is the question you're asking. The first step in progress is stopping to put the blame on someone else. And besides the government format we use in Nigeria is the Democracy.
A government OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. This infers that referring to a government in Nigeria will actually mean everybody living in Nigeria meanwhile you chose to define Government as the elected leaders.

In answer to your question; You, Me, Every other Nigerians are responsible for creating an enabling environment for employment.

Debaters pls puncture your opponents arguments...D cords and judges are waiting for u

Mazi_Omenuko:

I know its not time for judges to throw questions; but its obvious the quoted topic above is what you wrote on and not the topic that has been slated for debate.

You may wish to respond to this so I can adjudge properly.

I did answer this in my essay. Right after the question itself

taiwoliu: @larride and sapientia1: it is the duty of the government to create schools, but not responsible for how well you prepare yourself. Lecturers only give you basics, its up to you to differentiate yourself out of your pairs by going the exta mile because you and probably other thousands are taught the same thing.
@larride, security is not for the government alone to tackle but also, the citizens must give information to security agents when they suspect abnormalties in their environment

I beg to disagree, one of the oath of office when swearing our leaders into government house, is to protect life's and property, this year alone, the FG spends more than 900 Billion alone on security and yet insecurity is still high. The duties of securities operatives is to gather intelligence and curbs any criminal activities.

How many research center are there, how do our university compare in terms of equipment and conducive learning environment and whose's responsibility are all these anomalies?

sapientia1: Taiwoliu emphasised about engineering students on IT not being able to identify a spanner and a wrench. Let me ask you, who is to blame for this? a government that couldn't spend 26% of its budget on education, employing more lecturers OR the students?

A question for you, DO YOU PAY YOUR TAX? I am assuming your answer will be NO. A country is run on tax on its citizens and not on Oil Money. You are clearly a reason why the government can't do its job. Its a fault of yours and many other Nigerians.

@mods, am having problem quoting, hence my resolve to ask both debaters at once. I apologize and beg for consideration
@larride: u claim lack of loans and ur partner says the loans are available only to political thugs. Definitedly someone is not getting accurate facts. SURE-P, YOUWIN etc are programmes for SMEs, can you explain how the government is not allowing loans for youths?
You also claim lack of policies to support local content. In a country where we prefer international contents and dont patronize locals? How would you realize that the government's will to ban imported cars is for local produce? Have you heard of INNOSON Motors? Ban on importation of food stuffs that have local substitutes is also to support local content. You need to get your facts straight.
Americais experiencing its highest unemploment at over 20percent currently. Please stop comparing Nigeria with the USA, we are just 50years old, do you know how long USA as been independent?

carry on taiwoliu....25mins more for dis section to be over.

larride:

I beg to disagree, one of the oath of office when swearing our leaders into government house, is to protect life's and property, this year alone, the FG spends more than 900 Billion alone on security and yet insecurity is still high. The duties of securities operatives is to gather intelligence and curbs any criminal activities.

How many research center are there, how do our university compare in terms of equipment and conducive learning environment and whose's responsibility are all these anomalies?

If the country isn't secure, will there be anyone willing to invest?

Blaming the government for lack of educational resources is just a far cry to the real situation. How many of the already bought and acquired resources for schools are properly utilised and maintained?

You expect "the Government" to start placing a high priority on acquiring more equipments when the available ones are wasting?