Why Africa must place premium on education to attain greatness

It was Abigail Adams, the second first lady of the United States of America, who once said, “Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.”

Building on the premise of Adams ideology, Nigeria, and Africa as whole cannot attain greatness without education, and the quest for knowledge and national development through learning must be diligently sought after and not achieved by accident.

Ezeogu Chukwuemeka, a consultant at Quantum Core Consulting joining his view on this, postulated that Africa’s fundamental knowledge deficit is rooted on the continent’s affinity with chaos, which he said makes it impossible for even the world to plan with it.

Speaking during his convocation lecture at the Ballsbridge University and Institute of Commercial Management United Kingdom (ICM-UK) graduation/induction ceremony held in Lagos recently, Chukwuemeka decried the continent’s affinity for chaos.

“Owing to our affinity for chaos, a large percentage of the overt order we see in our system organisation as a continent is more a result of chaos than it is of intention or design,” he said.

Expounding the convocation theme; “Chaos, Drive and the Future of a Dark Continent”, he said Africa tends to thrive amid chaos, which is abnormal.

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“Because of our affinity for chaos, and the utter unpredictability that follows, nobody plans with Africa! With chaos, we are not masters of our fate but slaves to randomness,” he said.

He explained that contrary to popular opinion, the biggest deficit that plagues the African continent is not a leadership deficit, rather it is a deficit in knowledge.

“It takes a fundamental deficit in knowledge to allow for a collusion with your exploiters in their endeavour to exploit you,” he noted.

His views are portrayed in the recent report by the Nigerian government that it recorded an inflow of N5trillion from its customs; Chukwuemeka stressed that the record surpasses anything the government has generated in the past which is obviously abnormal, and a pointer that the country tend to thrive in chaos.

“This comes at a time when imports are at an all-time low, exports are almost non-existent, except for some agro -exports and commodities like solid minerals, also at a time when the currency is at its worst performance.

“All the economic indicators should be pointing towards a decline in income generated from customs and excise duties, and this leads us to question the anomaly,” he noted.

He reiterated that Africa must embrace education in order for it to navigate the murky waters of its affinity to chaos and the concomitant consequences.

“The future of this continent is hinged upon getting a critical mass of its people to place a different kind of premium on knowledge. To treat knowledge not as a transactional tool but as a creative force.

“To treat it as the means through with they will impose order, their unique brand of it on the chaos that has come to define the continent. And maybe ultimately, they can get the critical mass that would wield knowledge, cross-pollinate it and use it to create a continent that the rest of the globe would take seriously,” he said.

Our education should be tailored towards making positive impacts, and not just about the transfer of knowledge; it should be about transformation.

We need functional and transformative education geared towards nurturing our youngsters’ potential, honing their skills, and instilling in them the values of integrity, diligence, and excellence.

Nigeria, and Africa should embrace the kind of education that shapes learners into individuals who are not only knowledgeable but also compassionate, innovative and ethical.

According to Chukwuemeka, because of knowledge deficit, when we talk about value, the African thinks only in terms of monetary (extrinsic) reward.

“The African is still very much preoccupied with the motivational forces of external rewards and reinforcement. This, sadly, is the reason why he is more prone to exploitation because the research on the impact of external motivators on production is not so motivating.”

Research shows that “when money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity. rewards can deliver a short-term boost – just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off – and worse, can reduce a person’s long-term motivation to continue a project.