17/04/2024
An urgent shift in paradigm
We really need to look into the direction of unbundling the way we reason in conceptualizing issues in this country. This is because the way we're routed to see four years in the university as the superior source of acquiring knowledge need to be audited and properly evaluated.
For instance, a person who spent 6 weeks to acquire machine learning, 4weeks for block chain, 2months artificial intelligence, 8 weeks management information system, 3months cyber security etc and get certification on each of these components of ICT. Any with these skills I assure will disappear in space without any trace from whoever went to the university for four years to learn any ICT related course.
Take this again for another case study. Why should one spend a whole 4 years studying Mass Communication when in truth the whole of the course modules can be compressed and studied with an improved outcome under the micro certification model. For instance, you can learn everything about news writing in two weeks and get certificated, media laws and ethnics in one week, theories of the mass media (Which by the way is not necessary) in two weeks, use of English/writing for the media in one week etc and get certification on each of these modules of mass communication.
Let's dwell on another example on a course like sociology which to me is an advance level social studies (sorry no p**n intended). Why should one donate four years of his academic life to it? The reason is simple; the regulatory said no university degree should be less that eight semester.
But because we prioritize university education over skills, recruitment agencies or organizations will always prefer the university graduate who probably may not have a fraction of the knowledge acquired by these micro certification owner, yet we wonder why this country keep making motion without movement?
At the global stage particularly in Europe and America the paradigm has changed. Emphasis is on knowledge wrapped in skill with skill as a commodity (what you can do) and not the volume of certificates acquired that do not necessarily translate to any significant difference in output!
