“EDUCATION NA SCAM.” We hear this statement often spoken by young adults and adolescents.
The purveyors of this statement hold the opinion that Education is a Fraud. They postulate and propagate that education only promises a better future as a bait to rob unsuspecting victims of their money and time invested in acquiring it and does not fulfil its promise of a better and secure future. Hence, it is a fraud –A SCAM.
It may be difficult to trace this statement’s exact source or origin. However, the statement has been around for years and has gained currency amongst young adults and adolescents. Even some adults are beginning to embrace the concept as a reality, partly or largely due to the poor ability of the government to create an enabling economic environment that fosters job and wealth creation for the teeming population of graduates that pile up in the labour market every year and the promotion by social media of wealthy uneducated individuals flaunting flamboyant lifestyles with vague or no visible source of income.
This cliché, as harmless as it may seem, is slowly but surely wreaking havoc in the Nigerian society. The majority of those who believe strongly in this cliché that education is a scam, when asked about an alternative to education or what path they would instead take to ensure a better and secure future, give rather vague and unsure responses that border around ‘to go out and make money’. This is without any skills or defined plan for achieving the money-making agenda. Lazy youths and students willingly buy into the concept. Since they cease to be guided by the structured process of acquiring education and fail to partake of the many benefits of being educated, the aftermath is to seek out get-rich quick schemes or means. This desire to get rich-quick is mainly responsible for the increase in the rate of crimes such as kidnappings, advance fee frauds, relationship scams, ritual killings also known as yahoo-plus, armed robbery, and the like.
However, there is a need to ask: Is Education a Scam? Is there any truth in the perception that Education is a Scam?
The only premise that the purveyors of the assertion that education is a scam present is that, after going through the process and rigours of acquiring an education most times culminating in the bagging of a degree in the university, the recipients of such education find it hard securing a job or getting themselves gainfully or profitably engaged. They find themselves wallowing away for years job hunting in the labour market. After the frustrating search, they often abandon their course of study for trading or other activities unrelated to their field of study. Nevertheless, is this enough reason to conclude that education is a scam or ‘Education Na Scam’?
Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon in the world”. If education is a scam, will the internationally recognised Nelson Mandela have made that statement? The truth is, and it is crucial to make it categorically clear, education is not a scam and can never be a scam.
Acquiring an education involves many processes: the academic community life, the research, the seminars, the conferences, the discovery of self and others. It is, therefore, myopic to refer to education as a scam because of failing to get a job after acquiring a degree. The degree acquired is simply certification of a level of expertise in the course studied and does not equate to the education acquired; therefore, getting a Job after acquiring a degree is just a small part of the benefits one derives from getting educated.
The benefits of education are numerous. Some of these are:
- Education helps one harness communication skills by learning to read, write, speak and listen.
- It develops a person’s logical reasoning abilities, which enhance critical thinking and decision-making skills.
- Education helps reduce the inequality between genders by empowering girls and women.
- According to UNESCO, Education reduces child mortality.
- Education builds confidence in the individual and gives him or her wherewithal to contribute to the economic development of the larger society.
- Education helps us qualify for employment and makes it likely for an individual to secure better jobs.
As can be seen, education does much more for the individual and the society than just being a means to securing jobs, as the promoters of the cliché that education is a scam deceitfully claim. That assertion is ruining the lives of many.
Education is not a Scam. Education no be Scam.
Written by
Obinna Asadu.
