WHERE CAN WE WORK? CHALLENGE FOR UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM DEVELOPERS

Nwaopara, IJBAIR; 2 (4): 61
*International Journal of Basic, Applied and
Innovative Research*
*IJBAIR, 2013, 2(4): 61*

EDITORAL COMMENT
WHERE CAN WE WORK? CHALLENGE FOR UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM DEVELOPERS

Nwaopara A.O., PhD, FIIA
Published: 31th December, 2013

Several university courses today run on curricula that were designed
without defining specifically, the
fate of graduates of such courses who frequently end up asking this
reverberating question: where can we work?
Despite the ‘endemic’ and global status of unemployment, concrete efforts to tackle the problem in
Nigeria are yet to be seen. In fact, there are many Nigerian graduates who finish from the university only
to discover that they had wasted four or more years in courses that
obviously holds no future for them.
Many Nigerian first degree graduates have found themselves going back into the university to pursue other first degree course options instead of venturing into postgraduate training in their original fields, and at the expense of their aging parents who had hoped for a reprieve after their first graduation. One then may ask: Why not scrap such purposeless
university courses? Why are some
opposing the transformation
of such purposeless courses into viable ones?
   On the contrary however, no university course is purposeless and no attempt for knowledge acquisition is a waste of time. It is only the intent in the curriculum that matters as the fate of university graduates is inextricably tied to such intent. It is positive
if the direction/focus of the curricula is intended to meet the
practical needs of the society, and negative if otherwise. Overall,
undergraduate education should be to get the students trained, make them acquire functional skills, allow them practice those skills under supervision, and graduate them to seek for job placements or set up an enterprise that can even employ others.

Obviously, the issue of unemployment after university education explains the introduction of entrepreneurship education in Nigerian universities, to encourage
entrepreneurship and bridge the
unemployment gap. Thus, the need to re-examine the existing university
curricula to come up with areas of
specialization can no longer be
overemphasized. There is indeed a need to decide on specific areas of
societal need in other to train our
undergraduates to take up such
responsibilities. Of course, to take up these responsibilities, skill acquisition is required and emphasis should be on balancing theoretical instruction with real life practice.

ASN-PH-020919
ISSN: 2315-5388

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