The illusion of academic certification
A society that is governed by the reasoning that people ought to be paid for their qualifications rather than the worth of their services is doomed.
This is what I mean: qualification is normally the testament of ability.
But where the majority now have the qualifications with no expertise to match, then the purpose of the qualification has been defeated.
And this, to me, is the summary of Education in Nigeria in this age.
People merely aspire to get high academic certificates, with no intension of acquiring matching expertise.
This is the idea behind people merely “preparing for examinations” whereas they were actually to learn through the years and only write the examinations to gauge the extent of what has been learnt.
Unfortunately, this calamitous idea has eaten deep into primary and secondary school levels, and when one thinks of practices surrounding Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, one wonders whether that level of education is still capable of fulfilling its mandate.
The corollary of this is that students not prepared in secondary schools are now being mechanically passed into the universities and the universities have no say since their Senior Secondary School Leaving Certificates proclaim them as qualified!
Somehow, many of these crop of individuals manage to get out of the universities, but if only people take time to check the grades of the graduates they come across, they would know that many have only been let loose on the society with a caveat: “graduates not fit for employment,” which is usually true when you weigh their understanding of the professions they are supposedly certified to practise! To me, this is what “Third Class” and “Pass” grades mean.
This is what I mean: qualification is normally the testament of ability.
But where the majority now have the qualifications with no expertise to match, then the purpose of the qualification has been defeated.
And this, to me, is the summary of Education in Nigeria in this age.
People merely aspire to get high academic certificates, with no intension of acquiring matching expertise.
This is the idea behind people merely “preparing for examinations” whereas they were actually to learn through the years and only write the examinations to gauge the extent of what has been learnt.
Unfortunately, this calamitous idea has eaten deep into primary and secondary school levels, and when one thinks of practices surrounding Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, one wonders whether that level of education is still capable of fulfilling its mandate.
The corollary of this is that students not prepared in secondary schools are now being mechanically passed into the universities and the universities have no say since their Senior Secondary School Leaving Certificates proclaim them as qualified!
Somehow, many of these crop of individuals manage to get out of the universities, but if only people take time to check the grades of the graduates they come across, they would know that many have only been let loose on the society with a caveat: “graduates not fit for employment,” which is usually true when you weigh their understanding of the professions they are supposedly certified to practise! To me, this is what “Third Class” and “Pass” grades mean.
Comments
Post a Comment