According to Professor of Political Economy and Development, Kiikpoye Aaron, the Nigerian society is “very conscious of qualifications”.
He recently appeared on Nigeria Info's Hard Facts to discuss the government's proposal to raise the minimum university entry age to 18. While Professor Aaron supports the idea, his comments went further, raising questions about a seeming obsession with qualifications.
Speaking on the age requirements, he expressed concern about parents rushing their children into university, suggesting it creates problems for the system.
“I don’t know where Nigerian parents are running to with the children,” he said.
More controversially, Professor Aaron critiqued the seeming obsession some Nigerians have with qualifications. He referenced a time when PhDs were reserved for the truly brilliant, implying a devaluation of the title in recent years.
“In my era, people who were not seen or believed to be brilliant didn’t have any business with a PhD, but these days, the kind of PhD that I see, the kind of people that are getting PhD that are answering ‘Dr’ and of course that translated to the kind of people that I see answering ‘Prof”, only God knows where we’re going.”
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