Ireboya:
Education in this country issa scam

May your days be long!

hischoice:
I hate to spoil your mojo but engineering curriculum is same world-wide.

Wrong. We teach old out dated stuff. And even that old one, we don't teach well. I follow foreign curricula and read discussions by foreign students almost every week. The difference is like Heaven and Earth.

The fault's not solely our Universities. Our primary and Secondary schooling is mediocre. Both pupils, students and their teachers are D- levels. The amount of mark padding going on in our private schools is legendary.

Here's a secret, for most secondary / primary schools, the CA for final exam is non-existent. They simply give out 30-40 marks. And then both exam questions and marking are dumbed down.

hischoice:
I hate to spoil your mojo but engineering curriculum is same world-wide.
And by the way, you will never make sense of engineering until you graduate and start practicing... And that applies to everyone, irrespective of where you studied.

Nna forget that thing. To practice, you must first know what to practice. The saying, practice makes perfect has been proven wrong. The right thing is - perfect practice make perfect.

I.e. if I shoot a ball blindly 1 million times, I will not magically get better. That's why foreign coaches talk about FORM a lot. They don't mean physical fitness. NO - it's about moving the wrists, legs, muscles in just the right way.

Dothraki:
my point is exactly, we are making mockery of engineering profession, yet so many people will still defend it.

How do we progress in the country ?

My guy, ever since I joined Nairaland, you're one of the few people who have made sense on this forum.may your days be long. Nigerians need to wake up and call for a complete overhaul of our education system.

Nukilia:


May your days be long!

Dothraki:
what is the point of going to school if everything you need to succeed is outside of university wall?
Many of the innovations we enjoyed today came from within university walls.
With people that think like you, Nigeria can never progress

I honestly dont understand how people provide justification for failed system we practice in this country.
Many engineering graduate believed that technology is a product of witchcraft. And here you are defending such nonsense

Untill people stand up. And challenge the status quo. Nigeria will never progress

The Western Universities you praise students are not taught all they need to know. From their A-level to PhD level they are allowed and in some cases, instructed to do research on their own and in group work. Gap years. Placements.

The basics of Engineering taught in Nigeria—Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Strength of Materials, Material Science, etc— is the same basics you get at a Russell Group university in the UK or an Ivy League University in the US. That is why if you make a 1st Class in a Nigerian University you will fairly easily get a PhD admission offer in a Western university without being asked to re-do your BEng again. You are only asked to do an English test— and most countries take this.

I know a student who had a 1st Class in Mechanical Engineering at Unilag and applied and got an offer at the University of Manchester for a PhD. He’s finished now and got 3 post doctoral research positions at Bath, Cambridge and Strathyclde. And Manchester.

He had that Nigerian education which you are deriding. A hardworking student makes the most of his/her given situation. And never regrets if.

The lazy student complains and complains.

But it’s a hardworking student that makes 1st Class or 2.1. Not lazy, excuses-justifying students.

Ireboya:

I know you understand what's really going on in this country...... Let's keep laughing at the SCAM called education in Nigeria

madridsta007:

[s]
In Western Universities you praise students are not taught all they need to know. From their A-level to PhD level they are allowed and in some cases, instructed to do research on their own and in group work.

The basics of Engineering taught in Nigeria—Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Strength of Materials, Material Science, etc— is the same basics you get at a Russell Group university in the UK or an Ivy League University in the US. That is why if you make a 1st Class in a Nigerian University you will fairly easily get a PhD admission offer in a Western university without being asked to re-do your BEng again. You are only asked to do an English test— and most countries take this.

But it’s a hardworking student that makes 1st Class or 2.1. Not lazy, excuses-justifying students.[/s]

I imagine that feel you get when you carry certificates from Nigeria

[s]

Nukilia:


I imagine that feel you get when you carry certificates from Nigeria

[/s]


Excuses are a terrible thing.

Marlhyk:

Well,nobody knows tomorrow

Guy, you have to be like the animals.
Maybe you haven't seen, but I have personally witnessed right here in my compound, lizard digs the ground and lays eggs inside. After some months, the baby lizard hatches from the egg and comes out of the ground.
No father, no mother, no government.... Nothing. That tiny lizard start to run about my compound looking for food and shelter and escaping the eyes of preying hawks that can swoop down and eat it. A few months down the line, that lizard has survived and grown and is toasting another female lizard. They do their hanky-panky and another egg is laid. The old lizard goes somewhere and dies of (lizard) old age.
It has lived a complete lizard life from birth to old age without any government intervention in his life all inside my compound, under my nose
...
Uncle, make employment O. Stop crying for government.

Xbursta:


True i also have diploma in same course after i finish my two years program i felt like wasted my time am applying for DE to study cyber security

Which uni teaches cyber security?

Neoteny:
Our curriculum on many disciplines are a disgrace. Engineering students are taught pre-industrialization mechanics, electrical students are taught Faraday-level basics and electronics majors are a joke.

Our tutors are unambitious, uninspired, talentless lemmings.

The worst is computer engineering. They teach Cobol and Fortran endlessly, and almost none of the modern OOP languages (if they try it's just Java and C++). They don't do AI or ML or anything remotely modern.

Computer labs are stocked with legacy equipment.

And i also wonder why examination bodies like Jamb disallow calculators. I don't imagine anyone will encounter a real-world situation where they don't have access to calculators and other devices designed explicitly to make things easier and more accurate.

Useless and pompous PhDs and Professors who don't discover, invent, innovate or even improve. They're not abreast with modern trends, once they collect their doctorates and whatnot they're accomplished, deliberately dressing and wearing 1970s hairstyle because they think it somehow projects knowledge.

Imagine so-called IT experts calling IT "ICT", when no one else does that. Information and communication have been merged, as one without the other is meaningless. You communicate information, don't you? So to the world it's plain "IT", but to our local dinosaurs it's still "ICT". That shows their being behind the times.

You go to our "ICT" labs and all you'll see are old desktops and LaserJets. No robotics, no arduinos, no breadboards nothing.

Our education system is terrible. Cavemen from the Paleolithic can do much better

l love you bro. Its a shame people keep defending the failed system
My brother just got employed by teamapt, a computer programming firm and guess what? His degree is NOT even part of the requirement.. when i asked why they dont require degree and pay such huge salary.
He said, the technical know-how that we need "cannot be found in any of our professors head, most of what they teach in the university is not useful here"
They pay ood salary ooo

Dothraki:
please go back and read my article. The system is fvcked up.
It is impossible for anyone to implement anything. University or polytechnic
You get put so much theories to your head your brain will discard everything since you are not taught how to implent it.

Its like pouring water to a basket, the moment you finish exam, everything is gone in your head..
An average graduate does not remember anything, what is the point of learning if you are going to forget it all at the end of the day?
People that think like you are Nigerian problem.
There is need to reform the educational system in nigeria..
We are not even talking about making innovation..
Lets just be copying what developed nation are doing.. let us be manufacturing substandard phones, tv and all. One day we will get there..just like china did.

There is need for reformation. How can anyone defend the old and outdated stuffs we learn in Nigerian universities.....

You are part of Nigerias problem. Honestly

I dont know what school u went to ....but there is nothing u need that wasn't thought in school

Nukilia:


I know you understand what's really going on in this country...... Let's keep laughing at the SCAM called education in Nigeria

Education in this country is just too overrated, we no just get choice ni

Reading all these comments is making me regretting why I choose an engineering course while registering for UTME not until I remember that studying MBBS even here in Nigeria is a waste of time

CodeTemplar:
1. To start with, Engineering is largely design oriented and not building or development as people like to claim.

2. The Nigerian University system is set up to produce research focused or academic focused graduates and most practical Knowledge we ignorantly ask for from the university system is suppose to be acquired in polytechnics and Tech Colleges.

3. Your lecturers too were taught theories and don't expect them to teach you practicals even if they put in extra effort to get the practical knowledge they posses themselves.

4. the university isn't a place for practical focused skill acquisition. Polytechnics and technical Colleges are.

5. The average Nigerian is delusional and expects too be spoonfed with great ideas and their implementations. As engineers, they give you a knowledge of engineering principles and it is left for you to use your imagination to create things out of the principles you have learnt. In accounting, student are taught its principles and nobody takes them to a real life accounting dept to work, It is up to you to figure out what goes in where as you work with those principles.

This is what get me mad with our Nigerian "Engineers". We are trained to design:That's there motto.So what are you designing?Of all the engineering products I have around me and uses everyday,I can't find any designed by our Nigerian Engineers so why keep wasting money and time training them?I know what will happen if our roadside mechanics go on strike for a day even as I'm very sure the nation won't feel any pinch if our Engineers refuses to work for a year;that is if they have any work that they do at all

Ireboya:
Education in this country is just too overrated, we no just get choice ni

The result is what we experience in our everyday lives...

Dothraki:


ONLY Nigeria can prove the mental capability of black race, only Nigeria can show the world the scientific and technological potential of black race.
Just sad so many people keeps defending the useless system

Sad

Are you really serious about your "ONLY NIGERIA can" rhetoric? Is that a FACT, FATE or FICTION?

Bit rich coming from someone who's complaining about the engineering curriculum to become all philosophical and sentimental rather than pragmatic about the future.

Being the most populous black Nation is not Devine. It is nothing special. It is neither a curse or a blessing. In essence, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

wanger50:
This is what get me mad with our Nigerian "Engineers". We are trained to design.So what are you designing?Of all the engineering products I have around me and uses everyday,I can't find any designed by our Nigerian Engineers so why keep wasting money and time training them?I know what will happen if our roadside mechanics go on strike for a day even as I'm very sure the nation won't feel any pinch if our Engineers refuses to work for a year;that is if they have any work that they do at all

You are 100% correct! May you live long!

wanger50:
This is what get me mad with our Nigerian "Engineers". We are trained to design:That's there motto.So what are you designing?Of all the engineering products I have around me and uses everyday,I can't find any designed by our Nigerian Engineers so why keep wasting money and time training them?I know what will happen if our roadside mechanics go on strike for a day even as I'm very sure the nation won't feel any pinch if our Engineers refuses to work for a year;that is if they have any work that they do at all

I take it that you haven’t been to Aba then.

ifada123:
The knowledge we get from electrical engineering is very practical, the problem is that you can't see materials to work with in making designs that will make you innovative as those in the western world (I made a foot detector foot match immediately I graduated, it was not pleasing to the yes,no material to work with no machinery for finishing),
In engineering you are supposed to be taught the basic principles and you as an engineer will think on what to invent with it,
Engineering is not meant to copy, as an average Nigerian engineer want it to be,
They prefer you teach then how the I iPhone X max was design and let them make it, rather than learn how telephone, integrated circutry, displays, cells,and design, allong with order basic needed knowledge,
That was why one richdad ask me to go and make robot rather than learning about circle, when the robot become faulty I will be lost in the ocean.
I don't see Nigeria improving in technology soon.
Why
(1) the supposed theorem we don't even understand it in in-depth
(2) that is the way the lecturer were taught.
(3) for the few engineer that understand it they don't have materials to implement it

what you are saying is pure nonsense. I am sure we are people outside university that have developed something more practical than your yeye foot mat
Just shift

Dothraki:
l love you bro. Its a shame people keep defending the failed system
My brother just got employed by teamapt, a computer programming firm and guess what? His degree is NOT even part of the requirement.. when i asked why they dont require degree and pay such huge salary.
He said, the technical know-how that we need "cannot be found in any of our professors head, most of what they teach in the university is not useful here"
They pay ood salary ooo

Brother! You deserve a hot pepper soup with chilled malt for this comment. The scam called universities in Nigeria is the reason why nothing is actually working. The failure of the system is why we never get anything right in this country.....

uuzba:

I studied Engineering as my first degree in Nigeria, then went overseas to do a Masters degree.
When overseas, I decided to be very observant of this white people and their ways.
1. It so happened that the actual British guys do not do Masters. It is we international people, Africa, ,China, India, that travel to do Masters in their Uni.
2. Their B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) degree somehow consisted of many of the things we were doing in our Masters. Some lectures they would enter the class with us.
3. They began learning 3D computer modeling right from 1st year. We were learning same in Masters.
4. Our professor, showed us some pictures of some machine/hydraulic thing that he personally constructed out of interest before he even entered University. He said he just like fixing and fabricating things. And that's what drove him become an Engineer.
-
After these observations, I finally understood.
Studying Engineering is different from being an Engineer.
You have to first BE an Engineer before you study it.
Get your hands dirty in may practical things. Read books by yourself. Do attachment by the yourself.
It is this your tenacity and ability to do things and work with people that will get you on in life.
The degree is just alphabet.

The scam in Nigerian Engineering education it that nobody ever tells you that you really should own tools and have a workshop, fabricating things, before you even come to start the Engineering degree course.

what u have shown here is a working system.... d issue is our foundational process of education primary secondary dat ought to be top notch is in shambles...lets face it...with a good secondary and at most ist degree or diploma one should be able to stand any ground and do big things...someday we has to reset this country or the country will reset itself....after d saturation point....

madridsta007:


Studying in Nigeria and completely relying on your lecturers, laboratories, etc, is deluding yourself.
Going outside the box in every course is the way to go.
I know graduates of Engineering in Nigeria who are currently working at NASA, Washington D.C. Two brothers from a University in Northern Nigeria.
If you rely on what you are being taught, you'll probably end up being mediocre. If you go outside the box, you wouldn't. The average Nigerian student is extremely lazy. He/she goes on the internet to chat and engage in other frivolities. It is the same internet that gives the hard-working ambitious student, Edx and Coursera free courses, which this hard-working student takes and improves his knowledge of data science and analysis to complement the theories he learns in school.

The ambitious student does not have two heads. The lazy student easily latches onto an excuse, such as describing his/her course of study in Nigeria as a "scam". No sir/ma. It isn't. You are the lazy, scamming student.
It is up to you.

To correct something in your opening sentence, it is not only limited to studying in Nigeria. No matter wherr you study, you would be deluding yourself to think you can make any progress by wholly depending on lecturers, school labs etc. The difference however between the Nigerian system and the foreign systems is that overseas, a student is encouraged to get involved in personal research to get himself/herself properly grounded. But in Nigeria, we largely just have the believe that the school system should teach us everything. This mindset when combined with the fact that we lack basic facilities in our institutions, further aggravates the hopelessness and unproactiveness of Nigerian students.

Just 10 - 20 years ago, connection to the internet was a massive luxury for the typical Nigerian student, but that is no longer the case. But it seems like instead of using the privilege of the internet to engage in private research, most students rather prefer to engage in instagraming, snapchatting, facebooking, yahoo-yahooing etc. At the end of the day, we all latch onto the age old excuse of not having modern facilities.

Dothraki:
what is the point of going to school if everything you need to succeed is outside of university wall?
Many of the innovations we enjoyed today came from within university walls.
With people that think like you, Nigeria can never progress

I honestly dont understand how people provide justification for failed system we practice in this country.
Many engineering graduate believed that technology is a product of witchcraft. And here you are defending such nonsense

Untill people stand up. And challenge the status quo. Nigeria will never progress

Regarding the bolded statement, you need to be aware that it is not a Nigerian thing. All over the world, you are taught only theories and principles at Uni. What makes you a proper engineer lies outside of the walls of the university; most times it has to already reside inside of you before you even get to Uni.

Dothraki:
what you are saying is pure nonsense. I am sure we are people outside university that have developed something more practical than your yeye foot mat
Just shift

why try to downgrade his inventions what of those who have not made any.

spandola:
You are quite right. I studied Engineering back then in school and currently working for a telecom company with over 12 years experience . I do every other thing the expatriates do except for the bigger pay they get. If you find yourself in a telecommunications company here in Nigeria, you can compete with any other person all around the world because as new technology emerges you get yourself updated. Some of us are lucky to always attend trainings abroad and locally just to meet up with the trends. Curtesy of where we work. I once told a friend of mine who lectures telecoms in a University East in the Easter part of Nigeria to invite me and some of my colleagues who happen to be his course mate as well as mefor a three days workshop with his students. We intended simulating the Call flow process(What goes on when calls are made) and also use real time data and real life scenario to teach them About the GSM Architecture and its evolution. I did not hear from him after wards. I guess he approached his department and they could not afford to fly us down and accommodate us. Suffix to say that the departments should not wait on the Heads of institutions but try to think out of the box. Look for a way to Generate funds and give these students Real life trainings from time to time. It will prepare them for the future.

to generate funds easy...how many individuals give back to their Alma mater...abroads endowment funds runs in millions...u idea is d way to go a synergy between d university and d outside world...

madridsta007:


I know graduates of Engineering in Nigeria who are currently working at NASA, Washington D.C. Two brothers from a University in Northern Nigeria.

What you just said is similar to this:

My [father, mother, aunty, uncle, neighbor, or teacher] molested me as a child. Despite that, I worked hard and now work at [NASA, CBN, Toyota, Dangote...]

So people who see this molestation survivor story will conclude that molestation makes people successful?

Besides, your Norther brother story does not add up. You didn't mention the year they traveled. 1970, 1980? Cos it's gotten increasingly difficult. You also didn't how rich their fathers are. You also didn't state if they just got the job based on their Nigerian qualifications ALONE or if they went back to school.

Soyinka supposedly got 3rd class in Nigeria, went out and redid his university education. So his Nigerian schooling made him who he is today?!

madridsta007:


The average Nigerian student is extremely lazy. He/she goes on the internet to chat and engage in other frivolities.

Yes - you are absolutely right. The level of laziness repulses me on so many levels. The use of internet for absolute nonsense is appalling. However, people typically respond - not to words but to action and incentives.

And by this i mean, in many Nigerian universities, it's an open secret that what you read doesn't matter in the least. It's buying handouts, lecturer text books, and sending your appreciation money a.k.a. sorting that really matters.

So can we really blame the kids? I say this because I studied both here in Nigeria and Ghana. First year Nigerian students in Ghana don't read - especially those that left a Nigerian university. They assume that they would fail regardless of their efforts. By their 3rd semester, the change is stark. They read more, listen more in class and consequently do way better than they did in Nigeira.

madridsta007:

It is the same internet that gives the hard-working ambitious student, Edx and Coursera free courses, which this hard-working student takes and improves his knowledge of data science and analysis to complement the theories he learns in school.

Incentives like I mentioned earlier go a long way. We are in a country where your pali - the certificate is what matters the most. What's in your head is a secondary, or tertiary concern.

I'm a life long learner. You can check my previous posts, I own over 8000 udemy courses. However, employers really don't care.

I interviewed in a place at Ikeja where I told them learning was my hobby. And was flat out told, "Reading is irrelevant to our operations." Did another interview at lekki and was told that I was lying about the number of skills I possessed - content writing, marketing, web design, fast typing, graphics design. They were unfazed even after demonstrating a bit of my web design, writing, and typing skills on the spot.

The koko is that our society doesn't value knowledge, skill - else the person who actually knows the job would earn MORE and be promoted above someone who is useless but has a degree.

Until this changes, oga, you're preaching to the air.

I studied civil engineering and i lost the zeal when i got to 200L... The only time i enjoyed d course was during my IT in Julius Berger. Now am fully into computer programming and am loving it

vezycash:


Wrong. We teach old out dated stuff. And even that old one, we don't teach well. I follow foreign curricula and read discussions by foreign students almost every week. The difference is like Heaven and Earth.

The fault's not solely our Universities. Our primary and Secondary schooling is mediocre. Both pupils, students and their teachers are D- levels. The amount of mark padding going on in our private schools is legendary.

Here's a secret, for most secondary / primary schools, the CA for final exam is non-existent. They simply give out 30-40 marks. And then both exam questions and marking are dumbed down.




Nna forget that thing. To practice, you must first know what to practice. The saying, practice makes perfect has been proven wrong. The right thing is - perfect practice make perfect.

I.e. if I shoot a ball blindly 1 million times, I will not magically get better. That's why foreign coaches talk about FORM a lot. They don't mean physical fitness. NO - it's about moving the wrists, legs, muscles in just the right way.

Let me see if we can, at least, have a conversation...

You see those wrists, legs and muscle movements, that is what engineering at undergraduate level should be and is helping you do. Forget your teacher, pick good old books and get grounded in the theories. Please believe me, it appears to me that I am your senior colleague. I hope I'm not wrong.

Most students just don't want to put in that time in studying and understanding the principles. They want to just pass one course at a time, not connecting the dots, graduate and put the blame on their teachers.

Your heat transfer professor knows absolutely nothing outside of heat transfer. So does your Engineering Analysis professor. It's your responsibility as a student to connect both.

After 9 years of my career in engineering simulations, I still find my MTH201 and 202 notes the most priced. They contain quick resource notes to solve analytical problems just to validate computer generated simulations.

Eigenvalues. Does that sound familiar?

concho:
got admitted into federal uni in 2013 to study my dream course (engineering)
. Was best in department after first yr .
Found out i was scammed in second yr.
My high school lab was better than our uni workshop.
My high school teachers better than our lecturers .
Dropped out in 2nd yr (2015) with my #20, 000 in savings.
was rejected by friends n family .
Today am happy with 6 figures monthly .

how did you work things out ?? did you travel abroad ?? no further info

Ireboya:
so my course is a scam ? Should I dropout ?

Don't o. Just pray

[quote author=jesmond3945 post=77518310l
If you want to know the way theories are transfered to practical use then am sorry because most technologies are designed either in china or usa or germany.[/quote]
Where did you keep Japan?