Most youths seek higher education for the purpose of securing both an impressive certificate and hopefully a satisfying white collar office job. But with the rate of unemployment in Nigeria it's almost impossible to secure a job even as a certified graduate.
This anomaly has left many educated youths jobless, despite the fact that most youths spend a lot of money in school fees just to become a better person in the society and in most cases provide his/her family a better standard of living, but due to unemployment, graduates seeks job opportunities in the oddest of places. Does this mean that Education is meaningless?.
I remember discussing this issue with a friend some weeks ago where he made a good point, that even with higher education and certificates people still end up without jobs or in some cases dangerous ones. It seems meaningless to waste money on a 5-6 years of college education, when there's no credible future to look forward to. I didn't realise the wisdom in his points until i heard that the members of the most notorious terrorists in Nigeria were mostly graduates who couldn't secure jobs which lead them to seek another means of living. With this distressing knowledge, i wrote this post, because I'm worried about my own future.
The advice of the Ministry of Education on this matter is for all youths both graduates and non-graduates to engage in self empowerment through skill acquisitions, this further explains that the concentration on paper certificates and white collar jobs could not help the youths to utilize their skills in taking the society to greater heights. Moreover, it was suggested that youths should enter into some professions like carpentry, mechanics, farming and trade to help make them financially independent even though the perceived jobs are not forthcoming.
My immediate opinion on this matter reflected back to my friends point and raised the doubt whether higher education is still a necessity, because since the Government has refused to provide employment opportunities and has also neglected the issue of improving the educational standards of the country, it is better to just choose a local profession now and work towards achieving the required standards in the field.
After reading your post firstly I would like to say that it is not only a concern related with Nigeria. There are lots of third world countries in which people acquire higher education to get a white collar job. But the unemployment rate is increasing gradually faster than the amount of graduates that are being produced.
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