Nigerian universities teach technical skills but ignore problem-solving, leadership, and communication that employers actually want. Fresh graduates earn ₦77,000 monthly during service, so they accept low offers like ₦150,000 without negotiating, trapping themselves in survival mode instead of building real value.
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Because I'm in the tech space and I know that there are amazing guys that are building amazing stuff. They're solid. And but I know that when it comes to working in an organization, you just go beyond the technical skills.
What are the other aspects?
Problem-solving skills.
Yes.
Leadership.
Yes.
Communication.
Yes.
Teamwork.
Yes.
Right.
Most of our schools don't prepare people for these kind of situations in the real world.
That's where Uche Uchukwu started talking about what's going on. Where are these people coming from? In the last 20 years, what's happened to our curriculum? We understand things are very hard. How did we get there? Are you proud of your graduates at home? Did they train them to create or to consume? And that's where I had a little bit of problem with what he said, because But he's not supposed to tell us that maybe you're looking for a product designer. They didn't get a very good— no, I think maybe there was actually more to that conversation.
Yeah, so you, you will feel that the loophole to that conversation is in respect to the clarity.
Yes.
It can't be in respect to the lack of technical minds.
Yes.
So you are saying in essence that we have technical minds that are built on survival.
Yes. Take an average undergraduate, right, in a public university. Um, who are your coursemates? You're probably coming from the same background, the same pain, the same fear, right? And then your parents managed to send in 20,000, 30,000 per month. That's all you've been getting to manage yourself. And you're— the very first time you're going to have any experience about receiving a salary is during your youth service, and it's coming at 77,000 or thereabout. Now divide that by 30, about 2,000 something. Yeah, that's, that's what a youth copper is worth per day.
That's what the government is saying.
He's saying, yeah, that's what government is saying, that it is worth per day. So from there, you're being encouraged to save. And so you probably say, I'll keep 20,000 every month. So if you leave after 1 year and I offer to pay you ₦150,000, you feel it's a whole lot better where you're coming from. So for 1 year, I've further tried to make you feel that, hey, this is what you're worth after 5 years in school, in the university. How do you expect this kind of person to negotiate salaries? And consider the number of persons that are looking for these jobs. Because number one, where you're coming from, nobody taught you that, hey, see, you can create value, and that if you want to make money, if you want to get anything, you should be able to create value and then you get that. You were just told to go with this paper
