THE PROBLEM WITH AFRICA 12

There was a time some lecturers from an African university were hosted on a plane in Africa. During the cause of hosting them, they were told that the plane was built by some group of students they've lectured and it’s about to take-off for a test drive, immediately they heard it was their student who built the plane, instead of them to seat and enjoy the ride and be proud of what their student have built, they all jumped out but for one, when asked why he didn't jump out with the rest, perhaps he is proud of what the students he had lectured have built one of the host reasoned as they walked towards him to inquire, his reply sent shivers down their spines, he said, 'if this plane is built by my students, it won’t even start talk more flying'.
While the above story is a fiction, the reality is true of African education system and the level of trust Africans have on it. We are being taught things that are irrelevant to the world we live in. We are building a system we don't have faith in and don’t intend to make use of.
This is the reason even our government doesn't trust in her education curricula:
We train bankers in Africa but bank abroad; we don't trust the banking system we've made.
We train doctors but go abroad for treatment because we don't trust the services of our doctors.
We train engineers, but we engage foreigners to handle all of our engineering works and services because we don't trust in the engineers we’ve trained.
We do organize skills acquisition where we train Africans in various workmanship, yet we don’t engage them afterwards as we rather pay for the services of those abroad.
Though we don't trust in the product of our education/training system, yet we won't adjust our method to give us products we can truly trust in.
We need a system in Africa that would train Africans and employ Africans in that capacity trained. We need to keep updating our curricula until it produces professionals and academicians and skilled-men and women we can truly trust their services to the uttermost.
And most importantly, we must patronize the product and services that we've trained our children to provide.
The government of Africa and her leaders should patronize made in Africans goods and services and make it a matter of policy
When we begin to value what we've made, what we've made would increase in value.
God Bless You
Promise Ikpe