Iyin Aboyeji on Nigerian youth and Change

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Lots of sermonizing here.

I just want to correct the impression that I said anything I regret.

I deleted my comments because on some further thought I realize I have nothing to prove to Tola and his ilk by making a bunch of comments even if I meant them. In the end my responsibility is to prove them wrong in action. In the real world. Thankfully the Techcabal community knows I have a track record of doing that. I prefer to speak with my actions than with my words.

Frankly the only reason I responded at all is that I dislike it when people discourage and cast aspersions on the character of innovators who are trying to build the future. So much of our future has been lost to people attacking those doing the hard work of making society better. They are the real reason every third person I met thought about Andela but no one did it before we did. People like Tola make others afraid of doing good in the world. If they do good, others will interprete their good to be hyporcritical and if they do bad, people will say I told you so. It’s a terrible world out there for people living selflessly to build the future.

However, I believe people can be altruistic. People can be good and care about the future. I believe successful entrepreneurs do not just care about money. I definitely don’t. Anyone who knows me we can tell you that. We have to make money to maintain our independence and keep our impact sustainable but we will work for free if we need to.

We need people who think selflessly if we will have a nation we will be proud of. None of us should take pride in making a buck of vulnerable people. I definitely don’t and if anyone has concrete reasons they think Andela is taking advantage of vulnerable people, please make those concerns known so we can address them.

Now, if you are out there building something great, don’t listen to these naysayers. Keep doing what you are doing. Believe in the future you are building. Prove them wrong Nigeria and Nigerian youth need you badly and the future will thank you.

And with that, I’m out.

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Tueh!
I remember this techcabal thread where people argued with @iaboyeji about the possibility of training a “world class developer” in three months

Now the problem is that he is a “bloody capitalist” abi

We nigerians sometimes deserve the shithole of a country we have built for ourselves

Update: fixed error

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“But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying.” - Green Goblin #Spiderman

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Another thing we love to do in this country is to patronize. (especially among friends)

If @iaboyeji couldn’t beat a critic to silence, or submission on radar then am afraid for him. I don’t know him personally, hence radar would be my only ‘rule for measurement.’

He does not need a ‘naysayer’ to throw him off track Andela’s mission. Wait till the government starts poking with BPO policy makeover.

He’s already in the ‘Ocean’, being ready for things like this is the second most important part of his good. C’mon guys.

This was hardly even a test. Afterall tola na ‘agbero’ - whatever that means.

He shouldn’t lose sleep over the matter. More than prove his passion with his work, he should also be able to school critics about his industry beyond ‘shut-your-trap’ curriculum.

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@87_chuks best to pose your ‘agbero’ question to Tola. I’m sure he knows since he was the one who called himself that…

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You are missing the point that is the course is irrelevant to the narrative. That explains your non computer science grads (and non grads). Don’t stray far away from the fact that I acknowledge and admire Andela and what they stand for. You’re nitpicking without context, which makes me wonder if you just skimmed through my post to pick holes.

I studied Computer Science in Nigeria, and my reality involves me starting QBASIC in JS2, and C/C++ in SS1, thanks to my computer teacher. A public secondary school in Ogun State by the way - Iganmode Grammar School. Lesson here, don’t base your argument on assumptions and generalizations. And before you go on to say my experience is an exception, here’s me saying that earlier myself.

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Now that the well crafted and diligently scrutinised PR press release has been posted and real intentions/motivations deleted, can we please go back to the real issue here?

The question that needs to be answered is why can’t Amazon find 16,000 Americans to fill the posts or Why couldn’t Accenture get 14,000 people from Nigeria or anywhere else in the world as suggested. Meanwhile, even the great Uncle Stevo …

Jobs told Mr. Obama that Apple employs 700,000 factory workers in China because it can’t find the 30,000 engineers in the U.S. that it needs on site at its plants. “If you could educate these engineers,” he said at the dinner, “we could move more manufacturing jobs here.”

So what is China doing right? Before you go ahead and say that all the 700K are low skilled workers, what of the engineers that make sure that the equipment and software in the factory run continually? Or can a factory run without engineers?

Some will argue that China got it right by not allowing the West dump dead processes - that the likes likes of Amazon and Accenture do not see profitable - on their youth and turning them into Zombies. Also you cant argue that Labour is cheaper in China as Labour is way cheaper in India than China. So why China?

India has some of the biggest BPOs in world in which the likes of Infosys…

… has trained around 125,000 engineering graduates by June 2015. It can train 14,000 employees at a given point of time on various technologies

But yet, none of it graduates have contributed to the booming startup scenes in India because they have all become Zombies programmed to follow dead processes. Note, the perquisite for Infosys is very high - you need to be in top 2% of the most brilliant people India in your set to get in.

So of what advantage is a BPO in the long run to the youth of any country apart from the immediate cash rewards to its Zombies?

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I would ordinarily say nothing but I want to leave this article here so people who listen to your supposedly informed opinions can be challenged to go out there and do some research : http://qz.com/509778/an-infosys-veteran-is-indias-most-prolific-angel-investor/

:smile:

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Do we always have to define our youths with that other guy?
A guy graduates first class computer science GPA 4.82. He is now at MIT on full paid scholarship pursuing his masters.
Another one, leaves the same university with a 3.9 GPA and no knowledge of what he needs to do next, no scholarship and no future, no job ofcourse he cannot even apply to the multinationals because his GPA is below 4.0 and he ends up at Andela. Are you really going to define the Nigerian youth with the andela student? Is that being fair to the hard working guy who toiled day and night to secure his GPA and is now pursuing his masters or earning $200k/year at a multinational?

I see a response advising someone not to go through university. Has it gotten to that point? Why not advise the guy to go through university and grab what he can along the way?
People seem to forget that even Bill Gates who dropped out was top of his class when he dropped out. And Zuckerberg had to bury SAT to make it into Harvard and was top of the class when he started facebook which was why he was approached to build stuff by the winkle…

As regards Andela versus Tola. Both sides have a great respectable argument. Andela is adding some value even though I am stuck with the belief that a student who is not focused enough to push high grades in university can never push high grades anywhere else because the conditions change but the character is the same. Discipline is more difficult to nurture as we grow older.

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One of the best secondary schools in Nigeria at one point. Won the JETS competitions a few times. Akeem Yusuf 97 set was all brain! Olusunmade 98 set (I think) another brain. Iganmode was very strong in the sciences.

I attended Iganmode Nursery & Primary school, sango-ota. Was in the same class as Akeem. Head boy/senior prefect of the 97 set.

If there were baby programmers in any public secondary school, Iganmode would come up!

Sorry for the going down memory lane!

The problem we have is there are not many secondary schools like Iganmode and our universities are not to different from bus garages, they produce nothing but agbero-quality.

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If you are going to study computer science (not medicine or law or Pol Sci), then YES! Ultimately, you will be judged by your skill as a developer and most of our school aren’t doing anything to impart those skills.

I had 2 of those in my set in London on scholarship. But the reality is that those are 2 out of over 100 students.

Here are some youth and education statistics to help put things in perspective.

In last year’s WAEC, only 6 states passed WAEC (average result of 6 credits).
Less people wrote WAEC last year than the year before it. (People are skipping WAEC)
Last year, there was a public outcry to JAMB to lower their cutoff (More people are failing Jamb)
Let’s not say anything about the increase in “special centers” and parents bribing examiners for answers to be supplied to candidates. We don’t have data to back that up.

Summary: SECONDARY EDUCATION IS FAILED.

In 2013 (or is it 2014) 6.3 million people wrote WAEC, all the tertiary institutions in Nigeria only admitted 2.7 million (42% of candidates). (So there are no schools at all for about 3.6 million candidates)

I have no data to demonstrate the inefficiency of our tertiary institutions, personally I attended UNN (one of the best around) where Introduction to algorithm was a final year course in Computer Science. But one look at the global ranking of the schools will tell you how far. (Plus the fact that as at last year in Nigeria, CU a private school that is just over 10 years was number 1, and Landmark University, also private and less than 5years was no 9 before they even graduated their first set of students, UNN was no 10)

Our Universities are not developing capacity or building any skills. Employers have been complaining since forever that most graduates are not employable.

Summary: UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IS CRAP TOO.

Right now, 51% of our population is 19 years and younger and 44% are 14 years and younger. So we have a lot of young people.
We are estimated to be 3rd most populated nation by 2050 with over 600 million people, made up of course by most of the current young people and the unborn. In comparison, population of many western countries are dropping. Germany will be down 15% and Portugal will be down 18.6% by 2050.

So if you put all these together you only arrive at one conclusion, we have a very large and increasing number of young people (the future) but very terrible academic institutions to groom and shape them.

In my mind, I’m thinking, with our these young people, we have a chance to create a great future by impressing heavily upon them through proper development-focused (not just basic literacy) education to build a very large and highly skilled workforce for the future just like they did in Singapore and South Korea. So any effort at all to make a little forward progress is more than welcome.
I’m eager to see Nigeria in the top 5 global economies in the world in the near future and with young population like this and sound education, it is not just possible, it is begging to happen.

Education is an emergency case in this country and it just kills me when I see someone antagonize people that are even trying something.

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@Obi_Ik My question is that if two people go to school, sit in the same class and one performs well while the other does not. Is it okay to judge the educational system based on the performance of the under performing student?

is it then fair to say that education is a mess because tons of students are being seriously distracted by the social media evolution which is happening all over the world?
How about the hardworking students delivering results after school pioneering the multinationals?
Are they coming from another university?

Also, people confuse technical work with engineering work.
When did computer science/engineering become about coding php or python? I thought those were technical tasks.
Why would a computer engineer be judged by his knowledge of coding? Its like judging an electrical engineer by his ability to lay cables when there are people coming from the polytechnics. Or maybe judging a mechanical engineer by his welding ability when there are welding trade schools.

There is a need for trade schools/colleges like Andela but its not enough to paint Nigerian universities as dead while promoting the trade schools.
Also, have you seen a Nigerian trained fresh graduate sharing an office with a US trained or Asian trained engineer?
That for me is the real competitive evaluation of our education system.
Ask anybody in a multinational to tell you how that comparison works in terms of general project understanding, interpretation and work rate regarding deliverables.

Computer science is basically maths. In some schools, it takes 5 or 6 courses to break maths and computer science majors and its nothing about coding. The reason why you do introduction to programming in computer science is the same reason why Mechanical engineering students do Workshop practice.

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Following your logic, we should judge Nigerian economic class by Dangote rather than the 70% of the population living below poverty level.

Kontiniu

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IGS alumnus here. Class of 2000. You?

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Nobody has asked me for a CV yet

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While they read the article they should note that He was not a Zombie graduate of Infosys but any experienced hand (CFO) brought in to oil the BPO machine

Mohan joined Infosys in 1994[2] and served as a Member of the Board from May 2000– July 2011.[3] He was the chief financial officer from 1994 to 2006. In 2006, he voluntarily demitted the office of CFO to lead efforts in the areas of Human Resources and Education and Research.

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All these words just to say our educational system is good? This is reality distortion at its best.

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Do you genuinely believe in the above statement? Because I can see you’ve concluded your epistle (see below) with the same point? By the way, I see that you like the word ‘Zombies’. Nice

One simple question to you @Tola, do you genuinely think Andela will ruin Nigerian youths by training them?

I mean if this personal in some way and you loathe or hate Andela or its founders, I can’t judge you. We al have our dislikes. But to use bogus zombie arguments masquerading as intellectual points…that’s low.

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@Tola

Many persons on this thread believe the Nigerian youth are not best prepared for the future. Unless you think different and if so, please state that you aren’t aware of the unemployment and the unemployability in the country.

Now very frankly, do you have better answers? How do you propose this is fixed? Do you have a better alternative to Andela? Are you working on anything that you deem is better than what Andela is doing which to you, is apparently reducing the Nigerian youth to zombies?

If you have answers and working on something better, please work on it, show us the way and challenge Andela and we will personally root for you else just ST(F)U.

“I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Boss, I have nothing against Andela nor it’s founders. I even mentioned that I will buy shares lf they IPO because I know they will make money - the BPO buisness model is profitable.

My argument is that even though it is a profitable buisness it should not be diguised as the saviour of the Nigerian youth as it causes more harm than good. I just pointed out the hypes in the post before that brotha came for me and I went HAM on his ass.