EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA: A CRISIS POINT

In the traditional (pre-colonial) African society, education was regarded as a means to a end and not as an end in itself. That is, education was not an end in itself. That is, education was mainly functional in objective and achieved through the apprenticeship or on-the –job training system. Both the young and the old were practically trained for specific occupation and professions. That type of education, that emphasized social responsibility, relevance to the needs of society and moral values. The ultimate good of traditional African education was to “produce a man or woman of character, with the useful skill appropriate to his or her status in life” Fafunwa (1982). As a result, there was no question of unemployment then, and where it existed at all, it was very minimal. The major aim of education in all societies should be a preparation of Youths for a productive working life. In line with these, the paper looks into government policies and the way it affects education and world of works. The paper also discussed the ravaging unemployment in the society, and the causes. And it came to a conclusion that unless the new 9-3-4 system of education is faithfully implemented, Nigeria might be faced with a very explosive school leaver problem.