Skill or Degrees? -By Bilyamin Abdulmumin

Since when Sheik Ali Isah Pantami launched his book titled “Skills rather than just degrees” it continues to generate reactions from many people.

The recent release of Jamb exams set the stage for the debate to enter new gear. When students’ Jamb scores are celebrated up and down on social media, the critics of skill rather than just degrees mocked their counterparts for celebrating the feat, since a degree is inferior. Why celebrate the mere results of university admissions?

This didn’t go down well with skill proponents, especially the fact that they didn’t overrule degrees, so they came back with vengeance: they pointed to the people who owned the world economy and were not degree holders. Luminaries like Steve Jobs have said to dumb degree for skills. This rejoinder appears convincing but is misleading to some extent because until we have the data and statistics, they may be exceptional cases.

One of the skill proponents who is a successful PhD holder, earning cool cash abroad took it to another level, he promised to train his children to become entrepreneurs rather than pursue degrees. How can he achieve that when most of his experience revolves around degrees? Only those who succeeded through entrepreneurship should boast that. Many times it’s a preference disillusion, if you ask any government worker his response is most likely he prefers business, and many business ones see government workers as lucky people.

One of the earliest critics of the former minister’s book was a professor IBK from Bayero University. He took a deep dive into the grammatical error in the book title. But this is just an academic exercise, the most important is always the message.

So, a rather plausible argument was from one critic who said “The title of a book is the most important thing that will give a first impression about it. If Dr Pantami had said “Skills as ADJUNCTS to degrees” that would have been better” but a crushing blow the former minister threw on his book critics is they should write their own to counter him.

How did we get here? The early sermon used to be on acquiring education. The advice seemed overwhelmingly accepted which made students seek degrees at all costs. The employers of labor also exacerbated the situation by having an interest only in degrees. So, the desperation for degrees would even push for certificate-producing universities, recently Nigeria battled with such mushroom universities like those from Cotonou. Then, especially with the high rise of unemployment even with degrees, the sermon changed to skill acquisitions. At any gathering, the undergraduates or graduates will be constantly reminded to pursue beyond the degree: the skill. Perhaps it was against this backdrop that the former minister got his inspiration.

Nigerian universities at best train students to clinch the top ladder in management positions. In the engineering family for example, at the bottom are craftsmen then technicians who mostly handle equipment doing the process work, thus acquaint themselves with much of the skills, and at the top ladder are the engineers who many times do the supervising based on principles (and experience) thus end up with least skills. Engineers are professionals who are supposed to think globally or on a large scale while technologists are trained on a particular process, craftsmen on an even smaller scale, at individual level. But the question is does professional graduates truly equal the task, that is why I said at best universities train students to become professionals. Even if the professional graduates are fit for purpose, according to the degree critics, they should look for more skills, that is, they should learn more technician and craftsman skills.

This can go a long way to address some ill perceptions of engineers in society. An electric engineer may not be able to fix a power supply, a mechanical engineer may not be able to fix the generator, and a chemical engineer may not be able to produce any domestic commodity. To make matters worse, society doesn’t differentiate between engineering disciplines. They could expect geomatic engineers to fix power supplies or design skyscrapers.

The story of Jelani Aliyu is an embodiment of degree and skill debate. When he was admitted to ABU to read architecture he opted for the polytechnic Birnin Kebbi where the institution trained more on hand-on-the-job. In other words, polytechnic trained technicians and craftsmen.

To further address the professional graduates gap, Triple Helix is the way. The Triple Helix Model seeks to bring together the Universities, Government, and industries under one umbrella for more serenity. The government regulates university output to match modern industries’ demand. An acquaintance who is currently doing a PhD in China said, their grant was based on demand from industry: studies on power cells for agriculture energy demand. This is a good case of working Triple Helix.

All the proponents and critics of “skill rather than degrees” are saying the same thing: the degree is not enough, it must be furnished with employable skills.