EDUCATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA

Unemployment for the past few decades has drastically increased in leaps and bounds; one may be forced to wonder what the cause of this is. The economic value of schooling such as gainful employment has help to raise the demands for modern day education, but the high demands for education has drastically increased the percentage of unemployment, this is a paradox.
One of the challenges which the Nigeria economy has to contend with presently is the enamors number of Nigerians who are qualified educational and wish to work but unfortunately are unable to find any meaningful employment if not at all for themselves.
In the works of Adaralegbe (1985) he said, the president of world bank once has this to say “developing countries like Nigeria have greatly expounded their educational system over the past quarters of the century, but much of the expansion are seen in one of the most disturbing paradox of our time. While million of people from among the educated are unemployed millions of jobs are waiting to be done because people with the right education and skill can’t be found”

The federal government is vigorously emphasizing the need for our youth educational system to produce employable youth, and emphasis has now been shifted to science. This same science and technology education programs in Nigeria have been criticized as esoteric and generally unproductive due mainly to inadequacies in the curricular provisions and implementations. Graduate of science are mostly narrow specialist who find it difficult to fit into the world of works (industries and civil services) except in to teaching professions which unfortunately takes all.
Evaluating such issues as the curriculum and the adequacy with which it is preparing its product for effective future functioning in a society is less straightforward. Beginning with the primary school curriculum, it is obvious that it is still abstract and academic in nature. That is quality of education is judged primarily on the basis of academic achievements (e.g. ability to pass an exam).

Giving the socio-political and economic realities of Nigeria – a nation increasingly threatened by the population problem majority of them illiterates residing in the rural areas and depending on subsistence agricultural base for marginal subsistence, it can easily be said that the curriculum is irrelevant to the learning need of the majority of the school students in Nigeria. How do we assess the quality of an educational system preparing students to attain their individual and corporate objective within the same society were paper qualification and material wealth is highly valued?

For education to have any qualitative meaning in life of the students in any society, a holistic conceptualization of the purpose of education in that society, country and the place of the individual in the scheme of things is a prerequisite. there is no reason to believe that an academic and theoretically orientated student will not want to, and indeed, even be more effective in helping to transform his environment if exposed to a learning situations where he can practically demonstrate his theoretical information which otherwise will be a useless knowledge. Education should instill the relevant skill that will enable students to fit into the labor market and their society.
To be meaningful therefore, the Nigeria educational system should aim at ensuring that learning is work oriented, practical and relevant to the Nigeria needs and situations, that means that education should be that which would instill the spirit of self-help and self-reliance. Therefore, the big gap between formal and non-formal education as well as the distinction between academic and practical work should be bridge
It is imperative therefore for government to look into these issues and formulate educational policies that will turn these ideas into realities. Students of Nigeria universities are tired of going for extra trainings to fit into the job they have being employed to do. Companies, banks and multi nationals are tired of wasting so much money in retraining employees to fit into their vacancies. The time to act is now.