By Mallam Musbahu Magayaki
In the past, when a child reached the first stage of school enrolment that was provisionally five to six years old, wrong perceptions were instilled in his mind that he could be a breadwinner for his family when obtaining educational qualifications. Instead of, at the same time, being fully furnished with the positive impact of skill acquisition. So that if he, unfortunately, doesn’t get a white-collar job after graduation from school, he may situationally turn to the other side to become self-reliant and driven by self-buoyancy.
Nowadays, parents’ failure to engage their children in varied forms of skill acquisition training is seemingly revealing and mulling over the alarming rate of crimes being perpetrated in the country, which could be attributed to unemployment as the majority of the countrymen didn’t learn any skills or hold reliable small-scale businesses rather than depending on educational qualifications which do not guarantee one’s life success.
This mistaken belief has to be timely and utterly changed by exposing their children to various productive and creative skills that can help them meet their needs after learning the skills professionally. However, relying heavily on the government, specifically the Nigerian government, jobs as a source of income is a huge mistake that yields nothing but disappointment!
Let us learn from developed countries such as China, South Korea, and Malaysian citizens who have become productive due to engaging their youth in various aspects of skill training schemes with the support of their serious governments. And they successfully channelled them further to where they are now in terms of development.
In a nutshell, I urge Nigerian governments at all levels to replicate China’s Green Business Option (GBO) at both secondary and tertiary levels, which can feasibly pave the way for their products to acquire skills to develop themselves by becoming self-reliant even if they fail to be employed by the government and other related agencies.
Mallam Musbahu Magayaki writes from Sabon Fegi, Azare, via musbahumuhammad258@gmail.com.