• Nigeria... Different faces of the human capital tragedy Photo: ASHAMU ADEGBOLA

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It’s trite to stress the significance and relevance of human capital in the economic activity of any nation. This explains why enormous resources and energy are expended towards enhancing its effectiveness. When, after all this effort, there are still gaps in the system, angst and frustration bordering on despondency become easily discernable.

In a way, this appears to be the situation in Nigeria today where almost everyone is disturbed about the near collapse of the processes that ordinarily should have enhanced human capital development.

On paper, no cost has been spared towards re-engineering the educational system.Capacity building, an euphemism for re-training of the labour force has continued to be a sing song. Yet, the hope of reviving the structures that are on the verge of decadence and collapse seem forlorn. Employers of labour, public and private are bemoaning the low quality of products of the education system.

An elementary definition of capacity building is teaching a monkey new tricks. But isn’t that what it is, teaching people already fixated on old ways of doing things that there are, indeed, new and better ways of doing the same thing.
Capacity building is an integral part of human capital development, that ‘software’ which powers the engine room of not only enterprises but also governance.

Appropriately skewed human capital opens itself to new ideas and possibilities according to Brian Tracy, President of Brian Tracy International. It also designs new approaches and solutions that function creatively and creativity is an attribute of a human person who may not need to be intelligent even though it helps to be one.

Discussing this subject further, Tracy said, “I used to think that you had to be highly intelligent to be creative. Then I found that intelligence is not just a matter of intelligence quotient (IQ). There are many people with high IQs who got excellent grades in school but who are doing very poorly at life.”
In Nigeria today, almost everyone is agreed on one point – that the educational system is faulty. Is it because the managers of the system are not intelligent? Or that the raw materials (the students) are not good enough to be moulded to achieve desired goals?
In an earlier discussion with the boardroom guru and Chairman Governing Council of the University of Ibadan, Dr Gamaliel Onosode, he said in not so many words that there was nothing wrong with the system.

He narrated to Daily Sun his discussion with some university professors who were bemoaning their lot in the once enviable ivory tower. Onosode asked them one question, “from 1948 when University College Ibadan was established to today that one has lost count of tertiary institutions, who has been managing the system?” It was a rhetorical question but the answer was obvious. Academics have been managing the academic institutions. So, if there was a fall in expectations, instead of attributing it to systemic failure, put the blame where it ought to be – on the managers who might have lost focus of their goals in the towers that were beginning not to be ivory enough.

And this is affecting the whole gamut of the Nigerian system where employers claim that there was no unemployment in the country. Rather, what the nation is experiencing is a scourge of unemployable graduates from the various strata of our education system.
Obviously, this has led to a decline in the human capital development and deployment starting from the admission policy where merit is no longer a credible factor as the students have been made to believe that only fools with no loose cash to sort lecturers study. Even then, studying is not even a guarantee of success because failure to grease the palm of the teacher could lead to failure at worst and at best a weak pass no matter how intelligent.

The academics who allegedly indulge in this relapse into rationalization – we are not adequately remunerated and motivated. That may be true. But do these excuses justify the malaise where corner cutting in the academic process has become the rule instead of the exception?.
Discussing this issue that is affecting policy formulation and implementation both in the public and private sectors, is the National President of Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Engineer Ndukwe Kalu. He lamented that, “every employer is complaining.” He went further perhaps from experience, “if you hold interviews, the productivity is not what you expect. It is as if going to the university is a waste of time.”

But he agreed with Tracy that people who are flexible and adaptive in their thinking could be far brighter than those who are rigid, mechanical and strait- laced. In the opinion of Kalu, who is also the Chief Executive of AMSCO Telecoms, “the underlying fact is that, take that employee, put him through certain training in six, 12 months you won’t recognize that employee again. So, the raw capacity, potential is there.” He may have concurred with Onosode and stressed that “of course, the educational system needs fine-tuning to bring out the right human capital to drive the economy.”

Kalu veers off complacency and despondency to insist that in the interim, we have no option but to use what was available.
In his words, “we would be able to work with what we have while we fine-tune our educational system to churn out ready made graduates that can fit into the system.”
Defending allegations that organisations were not doing enough to help the situation even when they were the major beneficiaries of the products of these academic institutions, Kalu pointed out that “organisations are doing a lot in terms of capacity building.” But he observed that most of these organisations have to contend with a lot of factors beyond their control. According to him, “first of all, almost all organisations are limited by their funding. Second, they are limited by their control.”

Explaining, the telecommunications engineer said, “there is a limit to what you can spend on a staff. Most likely not because your conditions are poor but because they want to move along may be there is a better pay package elsewhere. You’ve invested in training, you can’t match someone who has not invested in training who wants to reap after you’ve trained.”
Even more than this factor, Kalu said, there were certain setbacks that do not allow corporate Nigeria to invest in capacity building.

“If you look at the human capital budgets of most institutions, they are enormous. They draw back when they have no control over the products of their efforts,” the telecom engineer said.
He, however, proferred a number of solutions which include the academic institutions, secondary and tertiary fine-tuning their programmes to produce quality graduates and not graduates that one would spend a lot of money to retrain.

But Kalu asserted that the only permanent solution “is a public/private sector partnership. It means that if we all pull our human capital development budgets together, work with the government, invest them in these institutions, it means we would have graduates that when they pass out, we will not be bothered when they come out whether they are moving from A to B or to C because you have a large pool to draw from.”

But Mr Yele Okeremi, the Chief Executive Officer of Precise Financial Systems (PFS) sees mentoring as a more practical way of developing human capital, “ I spend reasonable time to mentor and coach them on an individual basis on issues that are technical and of leadership manner. We have an active mentoring programme and hold regular keep up the vision fora.”
Mr Obinna Chilekezi, a Senior Manager and Head of research and Development, Nigerian Insurers’ Association, Mr Bright Anokwuru, the former National Auditor of Nigerian Labour Congress, (NLC), Chief Mike Umeh, an industrialist and Baba Ikhazoboh, the Managing Director of Dragnet, an employment recruitment outfit bared their minds on this subject. While blaming the educational system especially the attitude and even the quality of the lecturers, they however proffered what in their opinions was the remedy to the situation.

Chilekezi blamed the lecturers who he said were in themselves half-baked and ill-prepared. Anokwuru, speaking from the perspective of a Labour unionist put the blame squarely on the government who apart from pauperizing teachers, had shown the youths that money and not academics is all that matters.
Umeh chided graduates who he said display an appalling attitude to work.
Ikhazoboh on his part said that an average graduate believed that the piece of paper called certificate was all that was required to get on in life and then goes all out to get it by hook or crook.

Chilekezi, felt that Nigerian educational system needed complete reformation. The lecturers, he said were half baked and ill-prepared. “They don’t read and they cannot encourage students to read”.
He said, “a lecturer who is half-baked will only produce half-baked graduates. In the past, lecturers give students term papers, assignments and references of books to read. But today, they give students handouts of 40 pages. The handouts cannot make students knowledgeable that the society will accept. In fact, if you see some of the books in insurance that some of these lecturers wrote, you will be disappointed. Badly written. These they give Nigerian students to read.”

The NIA head of research said , “all we are saying is that the standard has fallen. Today’s graduates cannot write a simple letter, not to talk of business correspondents. Today, Nigerian companies are in a haste and no company has time to train new employees.” According to him, this is the reason many Nigerian companies go abroad to employ young Nigerian graduates. Nigerian banks and other operators in the financial institutions are in haste to achieve result and will not tolerate any staff who could not perform.”

Obinna expressed the belief that the country needed to do a lot to save the situation and reform the entire educational sector, because, he said, if the situation remained unchanged, more people who could afford it, would continue to send their wards abroad, especially Ghana, Gambia and other countries.
Mr Louis Ibe, head of communication, Insurance PHB Limited and chairman of the NIA media committee attributed the situation to poverty. “There is poverty in the land. Some students are working, paying their school fees, their young ones’ school fees and at the same time, taking care of their parents. Some of the students are prostitutes. You don’t expect a student prostitute to be the best,” he said.
“This issue, is a social one”, he said and added “it is a total decadence, but the students are not to be blamed because it is sectoral problem. No administration has taken a conscious look at the situation.”
Ibe called for conscious research and quality teaching to produce quality students. This case is truly a societal decay.

He said that the government has to be sincere, and he added; “we are lucky to have President Musa Yar’Adua and Vice President Jonathan who are academics. They are a plus for us. They should look into the matter. Our leaders should change this situation. They should bring conscious change, give adequate allocation to education in the annual budget and ensure a change in the system.
“The school programmes and curricula need to be audited. The academic staff and the vice chancellors need auditing.” He suggested that cross cultural exchange should be encouraged with foreign institutions. .
Ibe who observed that the young graduates, some with second class upper could not make a simple sentence, because they paid to get certificates and the certificates cannot equate with the quality of education.
Anokwuru, said that the reason Nigerian graduates were not employable should be put on the government of the country.
According to him, government, apart from pauperizing teachers had shown the youths that money, and not intelligence is all that matters.

He said that politicians, through (Ghana-must-Go) money sharing, had shown youths that school was not important and because of this, most of them were no longer interested in academics.
According to him, “Nigeria is the only developing country without education plan”. Anokwuru said that Britain with a high literacy level recently developed a 12-year education plan and under the plan, their citizens would have free education from primary to university level.

He said that there was no way the constant industrial actions by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), over their welfare would not affect the quality of the graduates since they were not happy with how government was treating them. “I agree with you that Nigerian graduates are becoming unemployable but I want to be quick to add that we should blame government rather than teachers and students. We have dedicated teachers and students who are willing to learn but government is not giving the teachers and even the students the necessary encouragement. There has been no year that has passed without ASUU going on strike as a result of poor remuneration and other poor conditions of service.

And when they go on strike, what happens? Government ignores them as if they are not important. These are people who mould the society. But I don’t blame them since they don’t know the value of teachers. How do you expect drop-outs turned professional politicians to know the value of teachers? They become what they are through thuggery and other uncivilized means. For instance, the members of the House of Representatives have mindlessly increased their salaries by 100 per cent without thinking of those that voted them into power. I want to assure you that within the next few months, the insensitive increase will lead to agitation in this country. The people who are supposed to be getting lift like the teachers are not getting it. Recently, the members of the Nigerian Union of Teachers went on strike for three weeks over salary increase but the executive ignored them and other arms of government but now, the representatives have found it convenient to increase their own salaries without increasing that of the teachers.”

Anokwuru said that salvaging the future of the youths of this country was at the disposal of government. He said that those in government were not giving the youths any cause to be serious with their studies going by the way they have elevated corruption.
According to him,” it is only when mediocrity gives way to meritocracy that students would see the need to face their studies squarely.
Umeh, a renowned industrialist said that the main reason why Nigerian graduates were not employable was because of their attitude to work. He said the attitude of most Nigerian graduates to work was very bad.

He said they usually come begging for employment, promising to be hard working, loyal and dedicated to duty but once you employ them, the reverse would become the case.
His words: “As an industrialist who have been employing people for the past two decades the reason why Nigerian graduates are not employable is not because of the quality of education that they got from the university. Though it is a factor but the main problem is their attitude to work. A lot of Nigerian graduates want to be in the pay roll of companies but they don’t want to work. They usually come to the employer begging but when they get the job, they would turn from lambs to lions. They would be behaving as if they are doing the employer a favour instead of the other way round. If certificate were the only problem we the employers would not have been complaining since we can re-train them to fit into what we want but the problem is their attitude towards work.”

However, he said that there was no need hiding the fact that the quality of graduates being produced lately from Nigerian universities were going down compared with what was obtained in the 80s.
According to him, then you could recruit a fresh graduate and give him a department to man with little or no supervision.
He said what might be contributing to the decline in quality could be the age at which people graduate from the tertiary institutions.
“I want to believe that the quality of graduates being turned out from the Nigerian universities in recent times is inferior compared to what it used to be about 20 years ago. Then, you could employ a fresh graduate and give him a department to man and he would give you results. However, I don’t want to attribute this to what is happening in the standard of education since the same curriculum is still being used. I feel the reason is the age people graduate then. About two decades ago, most graduates came out as mature men and women and most of them had working experiences before going to the university. That would certainly make a world of difference compared with children who go straight from secondary school to university”.

Ikazoboh, said that the reason a lot of Nigerian graduates were not employable was because they thought that paper qualification was all they needed to get a job.
According to him, in today’s world, paper qualification was no longer sufficient, adding that aptitude test among other things has taken over.
He said that those who depend on this were losing out in the employment market, as employers no longer trusted the results of graduates.
Ikazoboh said that students in the universities were not taught life after school and as such most of them graduate, knowing only the course they went to study but grossly deficient in interpersonal relationship and office attitude.

“The unemployment situation is not as alarming as people think. The research that I conducted showed that companies harbour vacancies in their organisations. They want to bring fresh graduates in, but they face a lot of challenges. They no longer trust degree and other qualifications from Nigerian universities for obvious reasons. For them, degree qualification is no longer sufficient. It is because of this that they have opted for aptitude tests as a way of testing the intelligent quotient of those they want to employ. They do this because they don’t trust the certificates that graduates flaunt about. Again, Nigerian universities do not equip fresh graduates for working environment. On graduation, what they know is only the course they read in the universities which is different from the experience outside where inter personal relationship skill is very vital.”

Ikazoboh said the only way the trend would change was if universities would enhance their curriculum to include career attitude.
He said that if that was not done, blue chip companies would still continue to recruit those who had degrees from outside the country.
“I feel that the present trend will continue unless Nigerian universities tidy up their time table so that students would be graduating when they are supposed to. The incessant strikes in the system are aone of the reasons employers don’t value certificates that come from Nigerian universities. It is a shame that employers in Nigeria value degree certificates from universities in neighbouring Ghana to the one in Nigeria. It is not as if they have better curriculum or more qualified teachers. The only reason is that their educational system is more tidy than ours.”