Qualifications Will No Longer Qualify Anyone- Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD

In a recent Facebook post, a former Finance Minister in Nigeria, Kemi Adeosun, mentioned that she needed two people to work with her on a project. After making a list of the hard and soft skills needed to do the job, she declared that anyone who has any degree between OND and PhD was qualified to apply for the job. She immediately added that the degrees (Qualifications) of applicants did not matter so much for the job. While it may seem professionally awkward or intellectually ridiculous that a job is open to such wide distant classes of applicants, it confirms that the world has reached the age I describe as “do-afication”; the age of “do it and let’s see”.

In Nigeria, the twentieth century was greatly characterised by “what is your qualification?”, which resulted in the glorification of certification in the Nigerian workplace. This largely promoted an educational orientation where people began to chase the score, whether or not there was something in the skull. It launched us into the age where a degree became a craze, whether or not the holder has an intellectual pedigree. Distinction became a competition among people who were hardly sure about their life direction.

The number of first-class graduates became a selling point for universities during convocation, and the credibility of secondary schools and A Level centres became the number of A’s in their students’ WAEC results and the 300ish scores in UTME. Permanent changes in behavioural pattern which should be the ultimate evidence of learning, did not matter anymore. It became a case of “show me your score and I shall tell you the type of student that you are”.

Having been a lover and proponent of functional education all my life, my conviction for the need to prioritise performance over certificates got strengthened when I sought a job as an editor in a publishing firm in Ibadan during my doctoral programme at the University of Ibadan. A friend had told me of an opening at BookBuilders in Bodija, and I got a chance to take the editor’s test in this company owned by an American woman who was also the lead editor. She marked my test and told me to resume the following week. After some months, I curiously asked why she did not ask to see my certificates, and in her words, she said, “Your certificates are none of my business. I look for people who can do my work, and I employ them once I find out they are capable.”

I have since this time seen the need for competence over qualification, and performance over certification. It is not my intention to downplay the need for schooling or formal education. I simply want to posit that school should foreground its core essence which is the advancement of beneficial and practical knowledge, not merely degrees and titles, which make everyone want to add “Dr” to their name and list honours like a menu list.

It will be beneficial to close this piece with three things school and education must do for anyone to make them functional in the modern society where qualifications will no longer qualify one for jobs.

First, school and education must help people think critically. Any form of education that does not train the mind to be inquisitive, contemplative and evaluative cannot be said to be functional.

Second, school and education must prepare anyone to act creatively. The final stage of learning is application, so whatever form of knowledge that does not grow people’s ability to create things that can be used in the real world, even while still in school, is insignificant.

Third, school and education must prepare people to survive in a rapidly changing world. This means that we must grow beyond culinary education, which dishes out mundane and pedestrian curricula. Educational content must be designed in terms of what they translate to in society and what they help the possessors do in the real world. It is my hope that this piece speaks to the minds of young Nigerians to prioritise knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which qualify them to be problem solvers, over the mere pursuance of grades and certificates.

(c) 2025 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.