ADVERTISEMENT
  • The Membership Club
  • PT Hausa
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Premium Times Nigeria
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
Premium Times Nigeria
BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
My degree is better than yours, By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Many Nigerian students want to school abroad, but their return can cause tensions in the workplace ...Photo: Nigeria's Broadstreet...Lagos

My degree is better than yours, By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

byAdaobi Tricia Nwaubani
October 7, 2012
3 min read

My friend’s niece has been sulking and shedding tears.  She does not want to attend university in Nigeria.  Government officials here send their children abroad to school.  Families that can afford it also do the same.  It is rare to find anyone with an alternative choosing to stay behind.

“All my friends are going to school abroad,” the girl said.  “I want to go abroad, even if it’s Ghana.”

Beyond the quality of education, the looming possibility of disruptive lecturer strikes and student unrest are further deterrents to schooling here.  I spent six years at the University of Ibadan, studying a four-year course.  In addition, it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than to gain admission into a Nigerian university without having connections or paying bribes.  The schools abroad usually welcome you with wide open arms once you meet their basic requirements and pay their hefty foreign student fees.  Admission without tears.

There is another reason why Nigerian students are heading overseas in droves.  They have learnt by association, by observing action and reaction.  The most highly acclaimed Nigerians, in almost every field of endeavour, have been trained abroad.  Those who return home automatically have elevated status thrust upon them.  They get the juiciest positions, the highest salaries, and the greatest respect.

As the recent global financial meltdown flushes more and more people from the diaspora back here, the rumbles of discontent among the “homeschooled” – those who studied here – are gradually increasing.  Anyone who cares to listen will hear their bitter complaints.  And the resentment goes beyond watching the repatriates pluck choice jobs from right under the locals’ noses.  Other charges abound as well.

“They think they are better than the rest of us,” someone said to me.   “They treat us with contempt, as if we don’t know anything.” “All they do is find fault and criticise.  They don’t realise that the way we do things here is different from over there.”

In many cases, these sour feelings morph into outright office warfare.  An Abuja worker told me that he was determined to watch one UK-trained consultant at his workplace “fail”.

“I just make sure that I do the little bit I’m meant to do, and nothing more,” he said.  “Since she thinks the rest of us don’t know anything, she can go ahead and do everything herself.”

His other “homeschooled” colleagues took the same stance.  Together, the department was determined to make that consultant’s life hell.

RelatedNews

Court remands dealers charged with inscribing fake SON mark on adulterated engine oil

Anchor University Deputy VC kidnapped

How funds were diverted under ex-NAF chief’s watch — Witness

NPFL (LIVE UPDATES): MFM, Rangers battle in Lagos

My friend, Ngozika, experienced this kind of hostility a few years ago.  After returning with a master’s degree from the UK, she was given a top position at a Nigerian bank.

“The staff were so cold and hostile,” she said.

Later, she found out that they had jointly decided to give the “chick from the UK” a hard time.

Dangote adbanner 728x90_2 (1)

Some argue that the repatriates’ condescending attitude could simply be a reaction to the half-baked skills of many graduates from Nigerian universities. Employers complain that you often have to put them through a series of training sessions before they can be of the most basic use to you.  Others say that the repatriates, as skilled and knowledgeable as they may be, usually lack the native sense required to excel—and survive—in the extremely peculiar Nigerian working environment.  It usually takes at least one grave failure before their eyes finally open to the fact that Nigeria is not designed to work the same way as the USA or Australia.

Ugochi Bede worked for the Nigerian offices of an international recruitment company. For years, she found both locals and repatriates for some top Nigerian companies.  She’s noted that returnees can lack the sensitivity to appease the resentment from their local colleagues – and so ignite a great deal of hostility that obstructs their work.

“But they usually have better work ethics,” she said.

You rarely find the repatriates doing things like selling dried stock fish or designer shoes in the office, or taking three weeks’ leave because their great-grandmother died.

Actually, none of this is new.  The same conflict played out vehemently between Nigerian employees and their expatriate colleagues both before and after independence in 1960. But this current crisis is different.  The two warring camps both have a right to be here. They are all Nigerian by birth.

At this rate, a foreign degree may soon become essential for anyone wanting to gain top employment in Nigeria.  More and more revenue will flow from here to the foreign schools while this country’s own educational system continues to suffer.

ADVERTISEMENT

(This piece first appeared on the BBC World Service Radio programme, From Our Own Correspondent http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/p00yk1nm/)

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is the author of the novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance, winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Africa). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • WhatsApp
  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Telegram
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

Support PREMIUM TIMES' journalism of integrity and credibility

Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.

For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.

By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all.

Donate


TEXT AD: To advertise here . Call Willie +2347088095401...


JOIN THE CONVERSATION

  • Disqus (0)
premiumtimes



PT Mag Campaign AD

Previous Post

Victims of Ogun auto crash buried

Next Post

Nigeria beat South Africa to AYC ticket

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

More News

U.S. President, Joe Biden (Photo Credit: CBC.ca)

On first day Biden issues orders nullifying key Trump policies

January 21, 2021
A family is being tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria [PHOTO: TW: @NCDCgov]

COVID-19: Nigeria records 1,386 new cases, 14 deaths

January 21, 2021
A wheat farm used to illustrate story [PHOTO CREDIT: Business Standard]

EXCLUSIVE: Nigeria’s decade-long wheat production so woeful, 98% is imported

January 21, 2021
Temitope Joshua

TB Joshua urges Nigerians to accept COVID-19 vaccine

January 21, 2021
President Muhammadu Buhari [PHOTO CREDIT: @BashirAhmaad]

Nigeria looks forward to working with Biden, Harris – Buhari

January 21, 2021
U.S. President, Joe Biden (Photo Credit: CBC.ca)

Joe Biden takes office as America’s President, calls for end to ‘Uncivil War’

January 21, 2021
Next Post
Flying Eagles play draw with Benin

Nigeria beat South Africa to AYC ticket

Super Eagles of Nigeria

Foreign pros expected for Liberian tie

Discussion about this post

Search

#EndSARS: Latest Updates




Polaris Bank


JAIZ Ad


NITDA Ad




Advertisement






netherland biz school Advert

Zenith Advert

Heritage Advert
ADVERTISEMENT

Our Digital Network

  • PT Hausa
  • Election Centre
  • Human Trafficking Investigation
  • Centre for Investigative Journalism
  • National Conference
  • Press Attack Tracker
  • PT Academy
  • Dubawa
  • LeaksNG
  • Campus Reporter

Resources

  • Oil & Gas Facts
  • List of Universities in Nigeria
  • LIST: Federal Unity Colleges in Nigeria
  • NYSC Orientation Camps Address Nationwide
  • Nigeria’s Federal/States’ Budgets since 2005
  • Malabu Scandal Thread
  • World Cup 2018
  • Panama Papers Game
  • Our Digital Network
  • About Us
  • Resources
  • Projects
  • Data & Infographics
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • Parliament Watch
    • AGAHRIN
  • Opinion
  • PT Hausa
  • The Membership Club
  • Dubawa
    • Dubawa NG
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Digital Store
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

Our website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.