Learning a skill has become the order of the day as even graduates want to acquire one.
Education according to research can be the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school. It can also be an enlightening experience facilitating learning or acquisition of knowledge, values, beliefs and habits. Education can be given in a formal or informal setting and experiences that has a formative effect on the way of ones thoughts, acts or feelings may also be considered.
In Nigeria, education begins informally as a child's brain is said to be tabula rasa upon birth to developmental stages. The parents begin by introducing simple commands and instructions to the child to help him develop develop communication and understanding skills. At the age of two, formal education is introduced as most parents register their child(ren) in schools, the kindergarten class to be precise where the child begins to learn formally the communication skills by interacting with other kids of his age, exchanging toys and communicating in their own way.
Education in Nigeria can be rigorous, as since the beginning of learning, a child has to spend two years in nursery class, five to six years in primary classes, three years in the junior secondary classes and another three years in senior secondary classes, summing up to thirteen or fourteen years to obtain a senior secondary certificate after which the child proceeds to the university where he spends a minimum of four years and a maximum of nine years depending on the course of study to obtain a university degree after which a compulsory one year of service.
The young man or woman starts applying for jobs if he has no connections, he is liable to spend more years unemployed and inexperienced. And on getting a job, (s) he'll be asked of his experience as it really matters to the organization.
Acquiring a skill on the other hand is a form of informal education where a child is sometimes not in all cases forced to learn a trade or a skill so as to enable him cater for himself and sometimes his parents and siblings. Learning a trade does not begin as early as the formal education, a child tends to have reached the age of seven before being enrolled to learn a skill.
Such skills includes tailoring, carpentry, shoemaking, barbing among others. Sometimes, learning a trade takes up to five years or more depending on the child's ability to understand and learn the tenets of the skill and also the child's level of seriousness, compared to the fourteen years being spent to acquire a senior secondary certificate. Though learning a skill keeps a child it of school which makes the child lack any form of formal education.
A university graduate, most times after spending some time at home unable to secure a paying job resolves to learning a trade to help them sustain the hardship and become independent.
In my opinion, once a child can aquire the basics of formal education, he should opt to learn a trade.
Learning a skill is very necessary in Nigeria especially before graduating