The Failure of University Education for Development and What to Teach Instead

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Nov 17, 2016, 08:45 ET

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In a new book, "The Failure of University Education for Development and What to Teach Instead," Samuel A. Odunsi, Sr. explains that while university education may benefit the individual, it hasn't led to overall economic development. For many developing countries, the hope behind university education far exceeds the results. The ideas and solution Odunsi presents in this book provides a way to equalize the results of higher education with the hope and unrealized expectations behind it. This book is not an idle intellectual exercise. It is the blueprint for development the world has been waiting for.

The Failure of University Education for Development and What to Teach InsteadBy Samuel A. Odunsi, Sr.

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Development is the rise of a nation—based on the managerial and entrepreneurial competence of its own indigenous people—to meet the West and other developed countries as an equal, like China has recently done. Underdevelopment is the inability to rise in this manner.
The single cause of underdevelopment is the failure of university education to make graduates perform managerial and entrepreneurial duties as well as expatriates, i.e. people from the West and the developed countries of Asia who already operate in these countries
The symptoms of this single cause include poverty, dependency, corruption, instability, the violence of terrorism, and so on. Except for violence, the symptoms do not affect expatriates.
Until the failure of university education is addressed, the symptoms are incurable.
Uprisings, revolution or democratic elections in these countries do not address the failure of university education. Neither have revenues from the export of raw materials, such as oil.
Billions of dollars from overseas spent on assistance programs, policy maneuvers, and wars do not address the failure of university education. Neither does globalization.
Without addressing the failure of university education, development planning and efforts to diversify the economy are just recipes for disappointment.
University education appears to work for the developed countries. So, if it does not work for the underdeveloped countries, then it is automatically assumed that something is wrong with the people of these countries or their culture. Nothing could be further from the trust.
Education that does not work because of culture is still useless education. Education that has consistently failed to make development happen must be replaced or remade to adapt to people instead of demanding that people adapt to it. It is not the fault of the underdeveloped countries that education does not know how to adapt to them. For the first time, this book presents effective education.
The suggestion that underdeveloped countries have an alternative path to development is wishful thinking. These countries are Western economies that are malfunctioning. Colonialism remade today's underdeveloped countries in the image of the West, and there is no turning back. These economies now contain all the pressures of a Western economy that cannot be met, but which must be met. Pious rhetoric about maintaining so-called indigenous cultures is a distraction and a cruel denial of this reality, while billions of people suffer and the world borders on chaos.
Education as we know it, does not know how to produce graduates that will perform like expatriates. In contrast, this book explains how to do exactly that.