We are in the days of Core and Transferrable Skills and I have been privileged to be part of this revolution within the school system, working with the British Council under the Connecting Classrooms project since 2013.

Education today is meaningless if it does not instill soft skills and prepare our precious children to be relevant through outstanding contributions to the global social space and economy…Sadly, in the foregoing regards, the British Council research found that Sub-saharan Africa is 2 generations behind schedule(60-80 years)

Nigeria’s case occupy a special place. Our precious children are out of school in their millions and most of those who manage to be in school are not learning the basics. Now our case is worsened by the mismanagement of COVID-19 pandemic.

The question on my mind as I facilitate online in the past week another session of Core and Transferrable Skills for the British Council, focusing on Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, what is the fate of the Nigerian child, particularly the denied children of the hoi polloi, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the Wretched of the Earth, as described by Franz Fanon.

In the world where before COVID-19 Jack Ma had predicted that 800 million jobs will be lost to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 10 years, noting that the people losing those jobs are not going to die but they are just going to be out of skills and will need to retool or reskill or become redundant, what is the fate of the precious Nigerian child?

In a world where COVID-19 has accelerated the demise of the old order in the world of work and birthed new and powerful opportunities, what is the fate of the Nigerian child, who today is not in the scheme of things in terms of being prepared to take advantage of both the emerged and emerging opportunities in the world today?

The soul of Nigeria is revealed in the way it treats her precious children, whose majority are horribly abandoned and denied hope and a future.

The future of Nigeria is also eloquently predictable therein.

I rest my case but my mind is desperately worried.