In Nigeria, a profound paradox underscores the tension between the pursuit of formal education and its systemic failures: over 20 million school-aged children lack access to basic education, universities produce graduates struggling with unemployment, and policymakers prioritise expanding tertiary institutions over fixing foundational gaps. Shruthi Kumar’s “Power of not Knowing,” which celebrates epistemic humility as a catalyst for innovation, appears at odds with Nigeria’s current educational realities.
In May 2024, Shruthi Kumar delivered a compelling address at Harvard’s commencement ceremony titled “The Power of Not Knowing.” Her speech highlighted a counterintuitive concept: that there can be tremendous strength and opportunity in acknowledging what we don’t know. This idea suggests that recognising our gaps in understanding can be empowering.
The Nigerian education paradox: Systemic collapse amid expansionist policies
National data presents a challenging picture of education and employment in Nigeria. An estimated 20.2 million children and adolescents are out of school, the highest globally. The nation’s education system grapples with catastrophic access inequities. Out of Nigeria’s 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory, 23 states are Educationally Less Developed States (ELDS). Seventeen out of 19 states in the northern region fall into this category, demonstrating a systemic educational disadvantage.
Despite these challenges, Nigeria’s National Assembly proposes establishing new universities per senatorial district. This expansionist agenda ignores the unemployment crisis: 53.4 percent of graduates under 25 are jobless, and industries complain of skills mismatches. Engineering graduates, for example, often lack practical training, leaving them “unemployable” despite theoretical knowledge.
According to Dr. Yemi Kale, former director-general of National Bureau of Statistics, unemployment and underemployment combined affect “above 53 percent” of young Nigerians, creating what he described as “a national security threat”. The push for more universities risks exacerbating credential inflation without addressing labour market needs.
Decolonising education
Nigeria’s education system, modelled after British colonial structures, prioritises rote memorisation over critical thinking. Curricula often neglect or deliberately ignore local knowledge systems, reinforcing what decolonial scholars term “epistemicide” — the erasure of Indigenous epistemologies. This rigidity stifles creativity, mirroring Kumar’s critique of overconfidence in established knowledge.
Scholars like Catherine Odora Hoppers argue that Eurocentric education systems in the Global South perpetuate “cognitive injustice” by devaluing non-Western ways of knowing. In Nigeria, this manifests in curricula that prioritise Shakespeare over local folklore of Amos Tutuola or Chinua Achebe. Such critiques are not calls to “abolish” formal education, but as a demand for epistemologically plural systems.
Experiments in informal education offer startling insights. Brazil’s Paulo Freire advocated for problem-posing education that centres students’ lived realities, contrasting with Nigeria’s lecture-based “banking model”. Similarly, Kenya’s Ujamaa schools integrate agrarian skills into curricula, fostering self-reliance. These models align with Kumar’s emphasis on curiosity-driven learning, where “not knowing” becomes a space for co-creating knowledge with communities.
The “Power of Not Knowing” as a Framework for Transformative Thinking
Kumar’s position, when applied to Nigeria’s crisis, challenges the assumption that more formal institutions automatically equate to progress. Instead, it asks policymakers to humbly reassess: What do we not know about effective education delivery in low-resource settings? This could shift focus from university expansion to piloting hybrid models — combining digital tools with community mentors — to reach out-of-school children.
For example, Nigeria’s unemployment crisis reveals a system prioritising certificate acquisition over adaptable skills. Embedding the “power of not knowing” into curricula design would mean replacing memorisation with project-based learning where students tackle open-ended problems (e.g., designing affordable irrigation systems for local farms). It would also mean integrating indigenous knowledge, such as traditional medicine or oral histories, as valid epistemic resources alongside Western science.
For a nation like Nigeria, what Kumar’s framework does is to demand a reframing of how literacy is taught. Interactive apps in Kenya’s informal settlements use local languages and gamification to teach reading, demonstrating that curiosity-driven methods can accelerate basic skill acquisition.
Instead of blanket university expansion, Nigeria could do these three things for a start – invest in:
• Community Learning Hubs: Spaces where youth access online courses, mentorship, and tools (3D printers, farming equipment) to solve local problems.
• Skill Certification Networks: Partnerships between industries and vocational centres to certify competencies (e.g., coding, renewable energy installation) without requiring degrees.
• Teacher Cooperatives: Decentralised networks allowing educators to share resources and innovate beyond bureaucratic constraints.
Senators advocating more universities might benefit from epistemic humility. By engaging with out-of-school girls in Kano or unemployed graduates in Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt, they could learn a thing or two about the needs of the unemployed — microgrants for startups, re-skilling workshops.
Not knowing as a path to re-imagination
Shruthi Kumar’s “power of not knowing” offers Nigeria and her Senators, not a dismissal of formal education, but a pair of lens to question inherited systems. It challenges policymakers to admit, “We don’t know how to fix this yet,” opening space for limitless innovation. By combining urgent literacy efforts with pedagogical models that prize curiosity over credentials, Nigeria could transform its crisis into a laboratory for educational renewal. The call to abolish formal education is not a rejection of formal learning — it is a demand to unlearn colonial rigidity and embrace the fertile uncertainty of not knowing.
