Degree mania will accelerate the recolonisation of Africa
A graduation procession. Most parents still prefer to push their children on an academic course up to university instead of setting them on a skills journey after basic education.
Remember that simple, sweet novel by Chinua Achebe titled No Longer at Ease, which was so loved by secondary school students? The main character Obi Okonkwo was highly educated, having graduated from the UK at independence, but he turned out to be the daftest of all his Umuofia tribesmen living in Lagos.
Obi felt too sophisticated to associate with the lowly Umuofians in Lagos though they had “taxed themselves mercilessly” to finance his education overseas using a revolving fund they set up so that when a beneficiary got a good job, he would start paying back for other children of the soil also benefit.
