“The graduate, the apprentice, the certificate, a framed memory. The skill, the new lifeline. Because in Nigeria, the economy no longer rewards degrees, it rewards survival instincts”
In Nigeria, paradoxes walk freely on the streets, unnoticed and unchecked. One of the most jarring is this: a university graduate, armed with years of academic struggle and a certificate that should open doors, ends up becoming an apprentice under someone who didn’t make it past Junior Secondary School. It’s not fiction. It’s not exaggeration. It is the lived reality of many young Nigerians.
This contradiction is not just a matter of education—it’s a mirror reflecting the dysfunction in our system. It shows the cracks in a country where schooling doesn’t guarantee skills, and where certificates often hold less value than hustle.
Why should a graduate learn from a dropout? Because in Nigeria, the economy no longer rewards degrees—it rewards survival instincts. The person who dropped out in JSS3 may have learned a trade early, built a network, and mastered the art of practical income generation. Meanwhile, the graduate may have spent four, five, or even six years in university, mostly cramming theory, rarely seeing a lab, barely writing code, and often taught by lecturers who themselves are victims of a broken system.
So the graduate learns barbing, fashion designing, shoe making, carpentry, or phone repairs from someone who never wrote WAEC. Not because he or she loves to, but because that is where the bread now comes from. And in a twisted irony, the dropout becomes the teacher. The graduate, the apprentice. The certificate, a framed memory. The skill, the new lifeline.
This is not to shame vocational work. On the contrary, the dignity in labour remains untouched. But it is to question a system where formal education is expensive, difficult, and long—yet produces unemployable citizens. It is to mourn the death of value in degrees and diplomas. It is to lament how our institutions have become conveyor belts, rolling out graduates with no work experience, no technical skills, and very little real-world knowledge.
It is also a call to rethink how we define success. The idea that university is the only path to progress has failed millions. What if we restructured education so that even in secondary school, students can start learning useful trades? What if we made polytechnic and vocational training centres more attractive, better funded, and equally respected?
Until then, let us not be surprised when our best-dressed graduates bow their heads to a JSS3 dropout and say, “Oga, I wan learn work.”
Because in Nigeria, that’s not just a punchline. It’s a reality
