Often times, people are faced with two choices. The choices of what is right and what is easy. When faced with such dilemma, what influences your choices becomes driven by the forces of values which you hold dear. Most people, especially in this part of the world (Nigeria), values academics to education.
This leaves me stunned and agape, as I shudder to imagine questions begging for answers as to whether they even understand the difference between education and academics. Hence, it becomes audible to the deaf and visible to the blind that oblivion and comfort fuels their choices.
Oblivion in the sense that they don’t understand the difference between academics and education. And comfort, because they are comfortable with the idea of getting a 1st class honors in a discipline that they aren’t well grounded on pragmatically. On a sketchy note the demand for certificate is beyond the demand for knowledge. This is revealed further when students nab A’s in courses and subject they don’t even understand or can even defend.
The syndrome of reading to pass, and not to know stokes daily in our academic institutions like admixture of fuel and inferno.
Here is the deal guys, and this is what I tell people. There is a fine line between “Academics and Education”. Shall we start defining? Ok! Let’s start!
Academics is a form of education designed and determined by the educational institution. The vehicle of academics is driven by the institution. They determine the directions of the steering. In other words, they decide the kind of knowledge the students receive. Whether the knowledge is relevant to you or not, so long you are a student of that discipline, it is assumed that you are receiving a relevant knowledge even if it’s irrelevant to you.
In a society like Nigeria, it is been practiced as the act of studying and thinking without practical skill in every form of discipline.
If you think I’m lying, go and ask that electrical engineering graduate who do not know how to fix a socket. Don’t let it surprise you too much, we’ve seen worse.>
Education on the other hand is the act of seeking for knowledge. In this regard, the person who seeks to get an education sails the ship to the direction he/she desires. In nutshell, he/she is the institution that designs what is to be learned, and what he learns are things that are only relevant to him, not things that he must learn to get an A or a 1st class.
For instance, that young man who is going to an automobile industry to learn about automobiles and how they are repaired is getting an education, and will do better than the mechanical engineering student who relies only in passing exams, and nabbing A’s without pragmatic knowledge. This is the difference between academics and education.
Education is better and can be enjoyed when you are learning about your passion. Please! Don’t allow anybody to force you to study dramatic art when you have a penchant for saving lives. The key is to discover what you are enamored of and plunge into learning and developing it rather than pursuing academics. This is what the average Nigerian environment has conditioned us to but you can emancipate yourself.