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BASIC LITERACY, NOT DEGREES
We have come all the way from the debate on Bsc vs HND to the debate on “young” people for leadership to the debate on “degrees,” not “skills” and, or “skills rather than degrees” to the debate on “Alma mater” and now to “good class of degree” as the determining factor for success in life.
For me, rather than a degree
and or a good class, what every one of us needs to survive and by extension succeed is basic literacy not higher education and or “good class of degree”. Please don’t get me wrong, this does not in any way discourage one from acquiring higher education.
It is apt to re-state that, what every one needs is basic literacy to enable him or her navigate through the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Basic literacy skills include: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In the 21st century and beyond one needs a digital literacy also which is the ability to use information and communications technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate.
As a people we must accept the fact that not all of us need a university and or higher education, but all of us certainly need basic literacy” to survive in the 21st century and beyond.
The society is a “system” which has a component parts. The society should be seen as such and functions as such. There is also the principle of division of labour and specialization. For as much as the society needs medical doctors, pharmacists, engineers, architects, and lawyers, etc., it also badly needs entrepreneurs, artisans, and technicians, etc. As individuals we are endowed differently in skills, knowledge and abilities.
In my view, as parents and as a society we must be able to identify our children’s individual differences in terms of their skills, knowledge, and abilities in order to encourage and support them accordingly. Their identified individual abilities should determine whether they need higher education or basic literacy in order to remain as entrepreneurs, technicians,or artisans.
In developed economies higher education”does not determine your survival or success. In Finland there is a grading system for its artisans with a minimum wage to each of the grades. There is a fixed wage for hiring the services of say grade “A” or “B” or “C and or “D”carpenters, etc. The grading system determines your earnings not your higher education. In such a country if one is convinced that his earnings as carpenter grade “D” is enough to afford him a decent life desirable one does not need to be a grade “C” carpenter except for knowledge sake. Most people in Finland only go for higher education for the sake of knowledge acquisition.
For us to get it right we must invest on technical education in our basic literacy provision in order to address our challenges of employment.
Nurudeen Dauda, Kaduna State,
