Strengthening Entrepreneurial Education with Appropriate Education Technology and Transdisciplinarity: Nigeria’s Perspective

Abstract

Rather than graduate from school into fulfilling life, the lot of an average
fresh African graduate is unemployment, disillusionment and resentment
because he acquired unmarketable education devoid of efficient and
functional life-skills for job creation and poverty reduction. Education
sector is breeding a growing army of unemployed graduates comparable
to weapons of mass destruction in Africa. Using the critical, theoretical
and documentary research methods, this study reviewed secondary data on education explosion and implosion in Africa and unemployability of
school drop-outs, scholars-leavers and graduates. Explosive education
expansion was typified by 334-740 % annual student populaton growth
rates for 4 to 5 decades running in some universities in Nigeria.
Generally, the number of students in the university rose by 102.8 %
between 2001 and 2004. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of
secondary schools rose by 173 %. Between 2001 and 2003, the number of
secondary school tutors rose by 228.6 %, while the number of university
equivalent instructors rose by 116 %. Between the 1960s and the 2000s,
the number of subjects taught in primary schools rose by 333 % and by
100 % in secondary schools. From the mid-2000s, however, education
implosion began to manifest in double-digit unemployment rate for
graduates, dearth of infrastructure, school desertion by learners,
plateaued or declining student population amidst 3.2 % rate of national
population growth, high rate of boy-child dropout from school, braindrain, among others. The study also examined and recommended
mainstreaming appropriate education technology and transdisciplinarity
as a way out of the crisis and as the basis for defining alternative
development paradigms for Africa.