What Is The Worth Of Your School Certificate? -By Onyejaka Alex Arinze

A recent news videos went viral of a graduate of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) who went to his alma mater to return his certificate and demand a refund of his fees. Alaba studied Agricultural extensions. He has talent in singing and dancing as he claimed. The young man was seen very angry, charging at the reception in what appeared be the school administration block. His fury was with the society and his school for his joblessness. He must have concluded that education is a scam. He could not muster the need for a certificate that cannot get him a job and feed himself hence he has to return it to the owner. He is obviously disappointed with his education. He said he is still dependent of his 90 year old father. The ageing man must have his regrets too. At that age he must have retired from active service, awaiting pension that seldomly comes, not enough to feed and buy medication. Here he is still catering for a son. Who knows how many they are? Investing in his son’s education is one of his hope for the future. Though the news report did not state whether Alaba was his only child. His father must have been disappointed with the system or in his son.

This is a system that took everything from him and gives him nothing in return. No job definitely for his son after graduation. No schemes to resettle him. It never matters to Alaba that education is a means, not an ends. Has he thought of putting his dancing and singing talent into commercial use. Entertainment is a blockbusters these days. Most entertainers are mega millionaires. Some are dropouts, much more a graduate. How did he spend his national youth service year?

For an average Nigerian graduate, the end of youth service year often marks the first tottering steps into the ominous terrain of the future. Only very few corps members walked into the soothing embrace of ready-made jobs. Yet a few privileged others will join businesses long established by their families. Another minority, afraid that a mere first degree will not grant them any meaningful advantage in the dog_eat_dog labour market, seek asylum in post-graduate studies. But an embattled majority, lacking high enough connections to secure jobs, and also probably lacking the requisite qualification for post-graduate studies, surged into the labour market, ignorant most of the time, of what it really is like. This group answer every newspaper advertisement of vacancies, hoping that miraculously they would at least be invited for interviews. Those people you would often meet with worn bottoms, eroded soles, ill_fitted ties and shirts, scuttling every morning to Education Service Commission, crawling on their knees, begging to be given teaching appointments.

Does Alaba know the worth of his certificate? Does he know the role education plays in one’s life. Why the unjustified anger at his school to warrant his return of his certificate? There are so many Alabas out there who does not the worth of their certificate. They are graduates who do not know that education is means, not an ends. They are still bitter at the the system. They toy with the idea of revolution. The old system when graduates were offered jobs opportunities before they write their exams in school, are not possible again in Nigeria. Not with perennial ASUU strike action bedeviling our university academic system.

Alaba ought to know that the worth of his certificate is not on the paper he wanted to return for a refund. The worth of his certificate are the solutions he provides to the society’s problems. If he does well, he earns living and cater for his ageing father and family who are looking up to him.

Onyejaka Alex Arinze