Nigeria as a sovereign independent state and giant of Africa, is inevitably running towards a financial disaster, a disaster worst than the aftermath of 9/11 in the United States. This financial disaster is due to our educational system's failure to adequately provide a realistic financial education program for our students. Years after years, students get to leave the school environs and head into the cooperate world with little or no financial education, these students eventually become heads of firms and institutions, government officials and leaders of religious and non religious bodies but with little or no financial education on how to manage money, which in turn creates a problem for the populace.
Now, what is financial education? One may ask. Financial education is simply the knowledge of money and how it works and operates.
http://beaconfinancialeducation.org/financial-literacy/
Unfortunately, this financial disaster is already hitting us slowly as experienced in the recent hardship, economic recession and total meltdown or retrogressive growth our economy is in.
It's in view of this incoming disaster that the need of financial education becomes more evident.
This is the 21st century (information age) not the 20th century (industrial age). The rules have changed. The traditional wisdom in the 20th century was to go to school, get good grades, get a degree and go to work for a large firm with healthy pay package or work for the government with retirement benefits. The idea of going to business for one's self was looked at with scorn, but in developed countries, the story is changed, the world has woken up, yet the Giant of Africa, Nigeria, is still asleep. Thousands are graduating yearly to face the sad truth that there are no jobs, everyone blames the government when in truth our educational system should be blamed.
Majority of the populace do not have a single idea about what an asset or a liability means. So those who are lucky enough to actually earn a living are those caught in the cobweb of lack of financial education.
The level of crime and unemployment is on the rise, because we are yet to embrace the global trend. We are being thought all our lives in school how to be an employee, we strive to get good degrees so we can gain meaningful employment. If such zeal and determination were channelled into making it by ourselves, being a boss and employing people. If majority didn't just want to be graduates and employees, if majority actually wanted to be Bosses and invested the same effort they put into schooling, unemployment and crime would be a thing of the past. The biggest mistake people do in life is not trying to make a living from the things they enjoy doing the most,the things they would do without being paid, how often do we see people end up doing jobs they don't enjoy? Or complaining about their jobs and paycheck? A problem caused by the lack of the right education thanks to our ill-structured educational system.
http://www.johnlund.com/Mobile/page/1383/office-worker-tied-up-with-big-clock-behind-him.asp
For a typical Nigerian, the higher his payc heck, the bigger his mansion, the more exotic the cars he drives, the larger his expenses, most often than not with little or no assets to match. Now, the difference between an asset and a liability is simply put; an asset is anything that puts money into your pocket or brings in income, a liability is anything that takes money from it. So with this knowledge, your expensive car is a liability, your personal apartment is a liability.
95% of the population are stuck with this problem. It's a case of living from hand to mouth even when a person earns as hefty as N300k monthly. A man earning N300k without financial education is no different from a man earning N50k monthly. With N300k monthly, the demand to drive a bigger car comes in, the demand to move into a larger apartment comes in, the demand to have his kids attend the best schools come in, his diet changes, his sit out spot changes, at the end of the day, he is left with nothing to save or invest with. But with financial education, you do not only work for money, you make your money work for you. You're earning 300k monthly, with a financial education the need to increase your expenses and liabilities doesn't come in, rather the need to build assets and investments, with 300k, you live a moderate like 100k goes into your daily expenses, 100k goes into savings and 100k into investments, in little or no time, the money going into your investments will yield double your monthly paycheck every month, and it grows same with your savings. Same with a man who is earning N50k monthly, 25k into investments every month will make one a millionaire in little or no time.
It's why we see our politicians fight to increase their paycheck because they lack financial education, the larger their expenses, the more income they demand leading to public funds embezzlement.
http://beaconfinancialeducation.org/financial-literacy/
If a realistic financial education was to be made important in our schools and colleges, most of the problems Nigeria Is facing today would be nonexistent.
I hope you find this helpful
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