Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has said that in order to effectively combat unemployment in Nigeria, a different approach which focuses on self-discovery must be taken in educating young Nigerians.
He said this on Saturday while addressing teenagers at the 2018 Teens Career Conference organised by The Redeemed Christian Church of God in Abuja.
Dogara said: “Education fundamentally is very good, but education and success are not synonymous. If that was the case, every educated person would be successful, but that’s not the case. They are a lot of educated people out there that are hooked unto careers that are not giving them much in terms of success and happiness.
“Now, unfortunately for us, our educational system in this country, the one we inherited from our colonial masters is not tailored towards self-discovery, it cannot tell us who we are. It is tailored to enable you fit into the context of finding out what you want to do, go to work, close from work, earn salaries, raise a family, then you become a pensioner till you die. That is the tragedy of our educational system.
“We have to change the narrative in this country, where instead of training employees, we are training leaders, because we have come to the time whereby government cannot continue to provide employment for our teeming populace in this country. We need to adapt as it’s done globally, to become entrepreneurs, those that will establish businesses that will employ 50, 100 people, and when we have that, unemployment will be a thing of the past.”
“When we just go to school to become medical doctors in government hospitals or any profession working in government agencies and parastatals, the government would be saturated and at the end of the day we will run into very dangerous economic crises of unemployment in this country, so we are raising people that will generate jobs, not people that will seek for jobs, and if we have to do this successfully, we have to begin from the Church.”
The Speaker urged youths to look inwards in order to identify their God-given talents and identify their true purpose, vision and remain focused.
“I want to tell you as young people that each of you is gifted, God has not created anything that is useless. Whatever God has created, he has a purpose for. You have your purpose so that you can use that and accomplish something here on Earth.”
Comments