All around the world, industrialization as a word has come to connote a process of national development towards the well-being of citizens, particularly with regards to reducing the painful efforts in the direction of getting things done in better ways. In some ways, it is always revolutionary in outlook. Many developed nations of the world enjoy the privilege of being referred to as industrialised ones.
In general terms, Industrialisation is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian and feudal society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing.
Though industrialization started from Great Britain around 1760, the Industrial Revolution had spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840 and has since spread to countries such as India, China, South Korea and Japan amongst others. It includes going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and rise of the mechanised factory system.
As expected, this has led to increased production of goods and services in countries complying with the required economic prescriptions such as education towards it. The reasons behind industrialisations are not far-fetched. They include; the emergence of capitalism, European imperialism and the recorded success in the earlier revolution in agricultural practice.
One noticeable trait in all the countries where industrialization has been made possible is skill. And skill is a product of impactful education that in turn gives rise to technology, not certificate as often promoted in Nigeria. Thomas Edison, the inventor of electricity bulb was thought how to read write by his mother. His education did no go beyond three years of studies in elementary school. In short, apart from Woodrow Wilson who served as the President of America from 1913 to 1921, no other president of the country presided over the affairs of the people with a Ph.D. In fact, out of the 45 presidents that the country has produced since 1789, about one third of them had no college degrees (Nigeria’s university first degree).
Unfortunately, in today’s Nigeria, certificate takes the place of skill and vice versa. It is therefore not surprising that efforts of governments at all levels towards industrialization and a more efficient service deliveries in various public and private organisations do not seem to be yielding the necessary results.
A visit to the Ogbe-ogonogo GSM village in Asaba, Delta state, Emeka Ofor plaza in Onitsha and the famous computer village in Ikeja, Lagos will reveal to any careful political leader in the country that the young boys and girls in these locations who are fixing mobile telephone handsets have the potentials to become technologists in factories manufacturing telephones if motivated by the labour input evaluation system that is devoid of attributes such as tribalism, mere certificates that are sometimes purchased with money and the ‘who you know’ syndrome.
It remains baffling to note that, in Nigeria a university graduate of a four-year degree course in physics can be preferred as an engineer in an office over one who possess an HND in a five-year Engineering training course in a polytechnic .
More surprising is the fact that a polytechnic graduate with distinction cannot even be accepted as a lecturer in the same school where he or she graduates from. Rather, a university graduate with pass grade can be used provided he or she has additional one-year post graduate diploma. The painful effect of this is that young Nigerians are completely abandoning the practical-approach education systems in polytechnics and colleges of education for the theory-loaded style in Universities.
Without industrialization, launching the country into a technological revolution may be a mirage. The labour reward system must also change and begin to give more to men and women with skill, no matter their places of birth, religion or parental status.
In fact, the higher, the education one acquires, the more opportunities he or she stands to get from the labour market. But this must not make the country lose focus from the fact that skill, not certificates hold the ace in her quest for industrialisations. If this mindset is not addressed with speed, a time is approaching when Nigerians will also abandon first degrees and begin to litter the work place with PhDs that may not be needed outside the academia.
