EDUCATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT
Let me start by asking, is there any relationship between education and employment? The right answer is, yes. Getting good education may not necessarily guarantee automatic employment but will definitely open doors to several opportunities later in life which will either make you gainfully employed or make you a successful entrepreneur.
When I say education, I mean getting adequate knowledge and skills.
Education can be broken down into 3 sections: Formal, informal and non-formal education.
Talking about formal education, it means, learning in a school environment like a classroom, getting a school certificate and a University degree.
It is well known that when an individual is employed, it means he/she has a paid job, whether the job pays the bills or not.
This brings me to underemployment. Looking at our society today, so many people are underemployed. There are many people with adequate skills who earn very low income.
One major reason for unemployment and underemployment is the change in the trend of things especially now that technology is replacing so many things and doing tasks that used to be done by humans.
With the increasing number of university graduates every year and the continuous improvement àin technology, what do you foresee in the next 10 years?
We need a paradigm shift, especially in our learning system. Let’s all take the bull by its horn, change our learning system and be creative about it. Just like the basic knowledge of Mathematics helps us in our daily life activities like trading, business transactions, investments, bank transactions amongst others; just like every child is made to study Mathematics in school without them necessarily loving the subject or necessarily becoming Mathematicians by so doing, I believe the same amount of importance given to Mathematics should be given to technology. Technology should be infused into the school curriculum and be made compulsory thereby letting children know the importance from a young age.
Ameenah Oduniyi (Edtrack’s content creator)