The limits of First Class degrees

DEGREES don’t make people. As important as the acquisition of knowledge and schooling are, what overrides classroom instruction is the knowledge learnt from the streets. That knowledge is called self-education.

The men who have affected the world positively and who are still affecting the world and altering the course of civilisation never graduated with First Class degrees.

Many either never graduated from secondary school, or barely finished elementary school. They educated themselves in their businesses, in politics, and became statesmen and women.

Take Benjamin Franklin for instance. He was poorly educated but was a master in many fields. Alex Ferguson was poorly educated. Here is a statesman who couldn’t pass examinations.

He has had opportunities to lecture at Harvard University after leaving Manchester United. Well- read people defer to him on historicity because he is an avid reader.

Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill had difficulties with classroom exercises. The latter couldn’t pass entrance examinations into the  military school more than once but was able to rouse Britain against Hitler’s Germany during WWII and is the greatest British leader of all times.

A First Class degree on its own does not make holders to have pleasing personalities.

It does not mean they can rally and unify the workforce, and does not mean they would automatically be people of integrity and first-rated professionals who can get the job done without being coached.

Many things in life are not learned in school. They are learned from our society. To be street-wise and self-educated is better than to be book-smart. When the chips are down, what saves people from hard times is their resilience during situations, and not possession of degrees.

Why the fuss about First Class degree and the trumpet blast around holders? What defines people are their values and how they connect these values to their professional lives. End of story.

• Simon Abah,

Port Harcourt, Rivers State