Founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti, (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), says Nigeria’s standard of education has fallen so drastically that graduates from Nigerian Universities have become more dangerous than uneducated people in the society.
Babalola stated this when he spoke at a reception held in Igbajo, Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State for Prof. Damilola Olawuyi, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic, Research and Strategic Partnerships of the institution who recently became a Senior Advovate of Nigeria (SAN).
“The common saying is that ignorance is a disease. I do agree. Indeed, poor education is worse than illiteracy. Poor education is even more dangerous than ignorance. But what do we have today?
Due to poor education, Nigeria is today producing graduates whose education makes them more dangerous than uneducated people. Today, Nigeria produces graduates who cannot write simple and correct sentences; graduates who do not understand the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs.
We have graduates who do not know the place and import of prepositions in grammar; graduates who do not know the use of adjectives and adverbs; graduates who do not know the place of agreement of nouns and number; graduates who do not know the import of adjectival and adverbial clauses.
There are graduates who do not know the difference between Tropics of Cancer and Tropics of Capricorn. There are those who do not know Magellan line, that is, the line that divides the earth into two.
There are many graduates who do not know the distance between the earth and where the rain starts to fall. There are also those who do not know why we have day and night or the difference between Neap or High Tide or the fact that what is called heaven consists of billions of stars and different planets.
“Whereas our towns will only be better if we have quality education, our nation will be better if we have quality education, and the world will be better if we all have quality education,” he said.
