And your company or that example you gave, wouldnt it be much more sustainable if they and many nigerian companies actually recruit school leavers, OND/HND grad to work as apprentice getting hands on experience under the previous programmer, that way they have someone working gaining real life experience acting as utility in other parts of the office even going for part time studies by the time he is done is fully conversant AND he will be much more cheaper -no recruitment cost, no break for future program training…

Nice pdf you add there, will be useful if Nigerian secondary school or even universities give career lectures to their students
WITH Nigerian realities added in

@Obi: I’m still a baby in this game so i guess I’m probably not the best person to tell you what’s good. Sorry. But if you social network well with the many Naija nerds you should be sufficiently enlightened.

Nigerian businesses think that they exist on another planet. How are they engaging with the institutions of learning in order to make sure that the young people of today will be employable by them tomorrow? They are doing nothing. They just expect skilled people to drop out of the sky for them to hire for cheap whenever they need them. It is easy to sit and grumble.

The story of how I learnt programming is an interesting and relevant anecdote. Basically, I got exposed to programming first because one teacher in my school decided to organise free classes teaching BASIC programming. That terminated prematurely for lack of resources. Later on, some benevolent German came along and distributed free CDs with compilers for Java, Linux and Turbo Pascal, and organised a few lessons teaching Turbo pascal as well. At some point, I had the unusual luck of being friends with a guy whose uncle in the USA sent him a book about Visual Basic Programming, and a Visual Studio CD to boot. The rest was pieced together by scraping the internet on dial-up links. Let me cut the story short. I will not be who I am today if nobody placed those materials within my reach. The message to you employers. Donate a book or two today. If you are mega rich, hook a school up to the Internet. Go to Universities and propose projects for students to tackle that are relevant to your business. That’s the only way to ensure skilled graduates.

Even PhD holders usually need on the job training before they become productive for their employers. As a result, it is often a good strategy to hire green horns who have demonstrated an interest in the field and a willingness and capacity to learn quickly. After a year or two with your more experienced hands, you can then expect them to be masters of the craft.

Finally, a foreign degree is worth much more than just paper. The exposure you get is immeasurable. I cannot quantify it in words. It is perfectly possible to study abroad and still be as clueless as you were while you were in Nigeria, but the exposure you get will set any right thinking mind on a path that is worth a lot more in monetary terms for yourself and your country than the amount of money it cost you to acquire it.

Peace.
[pardon the choppy writing].