Remi, this young custom Ankara shoe and bag making entrepreneur who trained youths on day 3 of the B.H.F Youth Conference in Delta State’s Sapele (see photos below), is a model of what is possible. So many of our young people can be gainfully self-employed like Remi is, IF they would only embrace vocational skills acquisition.

Rather than repeat myself all over again, in yet another “preachy” article, I feature below, previews and links to 2 news reports that illustrate VIVIDLY the fact that even those coming back home with “hot” university degrees obtained from foreign universities are NOT getting the jobs they thought they could get.

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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

Monday 30th April 2018

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 115:  To Kill Unemployment, Treat People With Vocational Skills With EQUAL Respect (and Remuneration) as Those With University Degrees! [True Story – Remi, a Lagos Based Entrepreneur, Shows Sapele Youths How to Make Ankara Bags and Shoes]

On day 3 of the 3 day Youth Conference on Vocational Skills Acquisition organized by. B.H.F Foundation (recall on day 2 of 3 I conducted my training on How to Make Drinks You Can Sell Using Pineapple Peels), we had a smart young entrepreneur named Remi  teach the over 230 youths how to make Ankara Bags and Shoes.

Below: Beginning stages of the process of making Ankara slippers – notice the shoe last (or mould)

My phone battery shut down before this session ended. Luckily we had 2 photographer/video men who captured it all, so DVDs are to be produced.

Over a 4 hour period, this highly skilled young man painstakingly demonstrated the process of making what he called a “Box Bag” (see photos below) and also how to make smart slippers – both with beautiful Ankara fabrics.

We had been expecting him to join us since Monday, but he’d had to stay back to ensure the first half of a client order was safely dispatched to its overseas destination.

In other words, this chap actually produces his custom bags, and shoes for both local and export markets.

Further discussion with him revealed that he’s been in the business for about 8 years now.

Dropped out from Secondary School due to lack of funds. Found his way back to school via technical education where he learned the basics of shoe making. He however noted that he learnt the art of Ankara bag and shoe making by studying YouTube Videos -adding that ANYONE can do what he does today, if s/he is willing to invest the time and effort required to learn the same way – at more or less zero cost.

I have shared the above to underscore a point I’ve been making for YEARS that education needs to be functional.

This young man is not only gainfully self-employed, but he also offers a few people income earning opportunities to work with him.

On top of that, he offers training and coaching for interested persons to learn how to do what he does.

Many of our so called graduates carrying B.Sc and M.Sc degree certificates from local and foreign universities around looking for increasingly hard to find jobs fail to realize they can do much more for themselves by exploring entrepreneurship – especially via acquisition and use of income earning vocational skills that are IN DEMAND in their societies!

Rather than repeat myself all over again, in yet another “preachy” article, I feature below, previews and links to 2 news reports that illustrate VIVIDLY the fact that even those coming back home with “hot” university degrees obtained from foreign universities are NOT getting the jobs they thought they could get.

And they are certainly NOT getting the kinds of salaries they thought their expensively acquired degrees would command. Indeed, as the Sunday Punch report below shows, many are finding themselves being passed over for graduates from local private universities!

It’s so bad that many of them, in spite of the many millions they spent getting their degrees from abroad, have today put them aside and embraced self-employment via vocations like custom shoe making – and as the case of Agu proves, despite being initially mocked by colleagues, they are actually doing quite well.

The above reality – and the fact that many others who continue to venture abroad to study, face increasingly tough conditions to pay their fees and living expenses, resulting in serious and humiliating hardships, PROVE that pursuing paper qualifications NO LONGER works like it used to.

Read: I Am Now Depending On Friends For Food And Shelter – Nigerian Man Studying Abroad

Today’s society rewards people with skills more readily than it does those without them. At the least, you want to arrive in the market place with both academic competence AND market relevant skills.

Dashed hopes: Returnee graduates struggle as employers snub foreign degrees

This much was said by the graduates interviewed in the reports I feature above, as well as the HR consultants whose opinions were sought by the reporter.

The truth is that our conventional schooling system – the one that emphasizes near exclusive book learning – no longer works and needs to be totally overhauled.

The smart parent – and student – would do well to make the needed changes in what s/he chooses to learn NOW, rather than wait for the school teachers, lecturers, administrators or policy makers to do what needs to be done.

That’s what I’m doing for my kids and it is why I’m offering any interested parents, teachers or policy makers FREE download access to the PDF pre-publication edition of my paper titled “Schooling is a Means to an End and NOT an End In Itself”.

My PDF report features links to a video that compares Job Training in the USA with that done in Germany – and it points out a GLARING shortcoming of what is done in the USA and explains why Germany’s approach enables it boast one of the lowest youth unemployment rates in the world.

I believe Nigeria can LEARN a lot from that video -and that we can drastically cut down unemployment in our country if we adopt a similar model to Germany’s in which people with vocational skills get treated with EQUAL respect (and remuneration) as those with college or university degrees!

Remi, this young custom Ankara shoe and bag making entrepreneur who trained youths on day 3 of the Youth Conference in Sapele, is a model of what is possible. So many of our young people can be gainfully self-employed like Remi is, IF they would only embrace vocational skills acquisition.

I explain with elaborate examples and illustrations, including true stories about my personal experiences and those of others, in my PDF report. Click here to learn more.

PII 112: A Well Schooled Person May NOT Necessarily be Well Educated [Excerpt from Tayo Solagbade’s “Schooling is a Means to an End and NOT an End in Itself” – Includes Excerpts from Tayo’s Letter to Lagos State Deputy Governor]

Click here to request FREE download access to the full PDF report, to continue reading….