In that letter, I put forward my thinking about how the Ministry of Education (MOE)and Ministry of Youth and Social Development (MYSD) can collaborate to
Below: Photo of my Letter to Lagos State Deputy Governor titled “Re: Schooling System: Meeting with Ministry of Youth and Social Development (MYSD) on Thurs 15th Mar 2018”
Last Friday (23rd March 2018), like I hinted I would, in the blog I posted about the invitation I got to the Ministry of Youth and Social Development, I submitted a follow up letter on the theme of my 62 page paper (Schooling is a means to an End and NOT an End in Itself) to the Deputy Governor.
In that letter, I put forward my thinking about how the Ministry of Education (MOE)and Ministry of Youth and Social Development (MYSD) can collaborate to better equip learning institutions to deliver EDUCATION that empowers learners to enter society with reliable competence to fend for themselves.
Like I did in writing to the MYSD, I included a full printed copy of my 62 page paper as a reference.
Having said/done the above, the truth is that I really do not care if I hear back from them or not, at this point.
What matters to me is that I have gone beyond grumbling about how things are not right with our schooling system, to OFFERING my own ideas for consideration, even as I put them to use for my kids.
It’s worthwhile to note also that more and more people continue to reach out to me, requesting their FREE copies of the PDF version. So, for me, progress is happening. It’s up to the policy makers to do what they will with what I’ve sent them.
If you need the paper, click here to fill and submit a form request.
“To be well adjusted to a sick society is no sign of good health” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
The annoyances in Nigeria (like the broken & corrupted schooling system) never stop bothering me.
I find it hard to accept them as normal and inevitable. Some people have told me it’s best to get used to them since they are not likely to change.
I think THAT is not a healthy way to live life. But that’s me. I believe I CAN change my reality. And that’s why the annoyances of Nigeria’s schooling systems drive me to find a solution I can share.
The ideas I advocate for adoption in this report are borne out of YEARS of painful struggling and suffering trying to find my true purpose in life, since I left the university, and especially since I quit my high paying job in a large multinational manufacturer, to pursue my long standing dream of running my own business.
I was NOT happy doing my salaried job, despite the good pay. I longed to do something that allowed me the freedom to explore my creativity, and maximize the potential I knew I had.
The need to do this became more apparent to me, and more urgent, when, one day, in my office as Technical Training and Development Manager, an old, retired ex-employee of the company, who we as young graduate trainees had heard retired after over 2 decades of service, BEFORE we joined, came asking, PLEADING actually, that I award him a training contract.
Among other things, in response to my explanation that my
expatriate boos and I were committed to only engaging accredited trainers, and only in response to REAL training needs among our staff, he pointed out the fact that he had done my job during his time in the company. I was aware of this and told him so. But I made it clear I could not help him.
After he left, I told myself I did NOT want to leave the company at retirement age, of say 65, when I would have lost my youth and most of my energy and drive, to do the needed hustling required to deal with life postpaid employment.
I wondered how it was possible that he’d ended up the way he was despite what I’d heard about the millions he’d been given in his retirement cheque.
Later, discussing with others, I learnt how bad spending habits cultivated from time in paid employment, are often difficult to curb post-retirement, leading many who leave the company to run out of money quickly. Then those who try to venture into business of some sort, having no prior experience, most times, often get swindled (sometimes by close relatives) and/or just do the business wrong and end up failing.
All of this told me that despite the schooling we had all received, our jobs paid employment insulated us from the harsh realities of life in self-employment or business.
But that would only last until we had to retire, or worse, when we got sacked (which has happened to a lot of people when they least expect it).
The thoughts I nursed made me spend 2 solid years trying
to gain experience by starting a business of some sort. I was restless. At a point it became apparent that I could not combine working my day job with the plans I had.
[Read Should You Quit Your Job or Start Your Business Part-time?]
When I’d been a shift brewer it had been easy to do other things – including travel to attend entrepreneurship workshops. So,
I put my 2 year old exit plan into effect, and quit my job in
December 2001.
But I soon learned things were not so straightforward! Things started out VERY bad, as I was unable to earn any tangible income for the first year – save for a pitiful N10k honorarium from the Centre for Management Development.
Yet, I had countless meetings, wrote numerous letters, to organizations everywhere. My efforts to get hired as a trainer/speaker had for the most part met with very little financial success.
People seemed unwilling to invite or engage me, despite my testimonials from presenting my original management paper on Self-Development at the Shangisha Centre for Management Development, on the invitation of the Director General , Dr. Mayaki.
It took me time to understand (actually someone in the business for a long time had to tell me) why I was not getting called in despite what they said was my impressive resume from Guinness, and the original menu of solutions I offered.
Nothing worked.
It began to dawn on me that all my years of university study and time spent in paid employment had not prepared me to do business in my country –at all (just like I had been warned, in a 1 hour closed door session by one of my expatriate bosses, after I told him I quit!)
It took me over 5 years to get a sense of direction. I had to learn how to find the right people to market to, and what to offer to do for them. All the things I thought mattered from my experiences in paid employment were put aside.
I then did deep thinking about how to take what I knew how to do (my skills) and use them to SHOW potential clients how I could solve their problems.
This led me to begin creating demo Excel-Visual Basic software applications to which I used in presentations to decision makers of micro to medium companies I approached (the big names never let me through the gates most times, so I let them be).
Eventually, as I improved my methods, sales began to happen on a more regular basis.
For instance, in March 2007, I built an Excel-Visual Basic driven Automatic Pay slip Generator Spreadsheet software application for a large hospital in Ikeja, Lagos. They continue to use it, even today (in 2018) over a decade later, to generate salary schedules, personal income tax and printed pays lips for over 120 employees.
See one of the video demonstrations for an advanced version of that app at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5Rtkgrthk
Another application I built for them was an Excel-VB driven
Automated Cash Book/Bank Reconciliation Software (See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOHXh4LKqE) .
About a month after I built the second application for that hospital, I succeeded in using demonstrations of both, to get another large hospital, also with over 100 staff to hire me to build an Excel-VB General Accounts Manager software that made use of formats/data from over 2 years of individual Excel workbooks they had store as weekly reports.
The second hospital purchased the Pay slip Generator and a year later (2008) hired me to build a Cash Office Payments Manager application.
The success I recorded with these companies was coming after years of struggling as a startup entrepreneur, to find clients willing to pay me to develop Excel-VB software for then.
So things began to look up for me when I decided to fall back on my spreadsheet programming skills, which I began offering to micro, small and medium sized bus9inesses – like those mentioned above. Today, I have clients in and out of Africa, who use my custom Excel-VB software (see www.excelheaven.biz).
And I also have experts in various fields who are paid members of my Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation club, learning how to use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to automate their use of Microsoft Excel, from me.
Indeed, this past month (February 2018) the newest member of my club joined from Nairobi in Kenya.
He watched the video of my automated cashbook and then emailed to ask how he could learn. About 2 weeks later he had sent agreed advance payment to sign up for my 1 year One-On-One coaching in MS Excel-VB programming (see http://tayosolagbade.com/xlvb1on1.html )
[TIP: That year when I had my major breakthroughs (i.e. 2008) after reflecting on my experiences, I wrote the article titled “Is Your Child Learning for School or for Life” :
https://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Your-Child-Learning-For-
School-Or-For-Life?&id=1240561 ]
What I had gone through and the manner in which I’d emerged made me realize the formal schooling I’d gotten had NOT prepared me well enough for the real world. The desire to share my experiences for others to learn from drove me to write that article, as well as others published in the Best Practice Parenting category of my blog at http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/category/parenting/
That passion made me write THIS report you now read.
In 2006, I published a Whitepaper titled The World’s Future Prosperity Depends On Digital Multipreneurs.
It got so widely syndicated online that in 2015 I published it as an ebook (see http://www.lulu.com/shop/tayosolagbade/
the-worlds-future-prosperity-depends-ondigital-
multipreneurs/ebook/product-21951176.html).
Subtitle: Sustainable Socio Economic Prosperity Worldwide is Achievable Through Creation and Proliferation of Digital Multipreneurs™ in All Societies This book is based on a White Paper first published online by Tayo Solagbade in January 2006. Tayo has since applied the ideas and strategies described in it to achieve the success he enjoys today as a Location Independent Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others – by providing solutions to buyers within and outside Africa. More…
Today, I live the life of a Digital Multipreneur, proving that my ideas from that book actually work.
The above background is provided here not to brag or make myself look good, but to show how I have moved from being confused and unable to make reliable progress to being sure of what to do, how, where and for whom.
All of this has happened without my needing to go back to school to get more qualifications. Indeed, when I was confused, I still had all my qualifications and paid employment experiences. But they were not enough. I had to sit down, over time, to do serious critical thinking to find the right formula.
Today, I argue that developing a critical thinking habit, coupled with a passion for self-education is MORE important for achieving success in ANY field, than whatever qualifications a person may possess.
This is why I recommend, in this report, that a vocational skills based approach be made the foundation of formal schooling that we give our kids. It will make them enter into society as well rounded competent income earning adults.
No matter what life throws at them (jobs or no jobs), they will be able to fend for themselves.
A well-schooled person may NOT necessarily be well educated.
This is apparent from the glaring fact in many societies that MANY finish the highest levels of schooling and still enter society clueless about how to make a successful existence – especially financially.
In other words, they leave school knowing little or nothing about money and how to get it, outside paid employment.
My experience based understanding is that an educated person is one who knows WHAT to do to get whatever s/he wants AND who when unsure what to do, knows WHERE to go (or HOW) to find answers s/he needs to achieve his/her goals!
This is why I argue that every parent needs to TAKE OWNERSHIP of his/her child’s schooling, to ensure the child gets COMPLETE, BALANCED education that is real world relevant, boosting his/her chances of success in life as an adult.”
Today, I can confidently call myself EDUCATED due to the process I’ve followed via trial and error, plus lots of self-study and deep thinking, as reflected in my story told above.
To add perspective to what I have said above, I will give examples of educated persons as:
Click here to request FREE download access to the full PDF report, to continue reading….
Excel-VB Driven Ration Formulator
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2.Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
EXCEL-VB DRIVEN POULTRY LAYER FARM MANAGER SOFTWARE
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
SDN Blog™
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Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
http://www.tayosolagbade.com
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/ web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
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[IMPORTANT NOTE:====
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old, NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
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audience profile. I can help to research and investigate the market there, to get firmer details of what it will take to get started etc.
