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What Our Schools Don’t Teach Our Students, By Emeka Monye

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In his 2009 book, “What America Really Want, Dr. Frank Luntz, a respected pollster who measures the heartbeat of America, asked these survey questions: “If you had to choose, would you prefer to be a business owner or CEO of a fortune 500 company?”

His question was a closed ended one, bearing in mind he wanted a direct and simplistic answer.

The response he received from his residents is as diverse and clear as one would expect.

Out of all his respondents, eighty percent of them said they would want to be owner of business that employs 100 or more people, while fourteen percent said they would want to be Chief Executive Officer of a fortune 500 company that employs more than 10,000 people and the rest six percent not giving a clear answer to his research question.

His response re-echoes the desires of the average human, working to be their own boss, living the life of the dreams and having to live the life of freedom, yet such desires of owning one’s business remains elusive for an average student because our school systems only teach and train the students to be employees. This is part of the problem.

The school system does not train the student to create jobs, to build capacity to set up industries for students and when you don’t have this kind of culture, where the school system prepared the student to be job creators, then you just know that with time, the job seekers will find no job.

Our school system, apart from the skills they teach, the system doesn’t teach the student capacity, competence, street smart, exposure and many of those contending factors that set apart entrepreneurs from employees.

According to Robert Kiyosaki, author of the famous book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad, There is a tremendous difference between the skill sets of an employee and an employer.

The skills of an employer are not taught in schools.

Kiyosaki submits that both skills differ because while the employee is deep in neck reading hard to pass exams and make good grades and potential unemployment, the employer is building capacity, street wisdom, exposure to understand the vagaries of business success.

While the school system focuses more on theoretical framework, it really doesn’t teach the student practical, at best what the school system teaches the student is ability to memorize concepts.

This procedure doesn’t really prepare the student for the real world of Entrepreneurship.

The world of entrepreneurship is practical, brut, adventurous, smart, continuous learning, discerning, intuitive, intelligent, wise, and above all, a combination of classroom knowledge and real life experience and exposures.

Dr. Luntz also in his book, ” What America Really Wants”, asserts that the lack of financial education is the main reason why many people will remain employees.

Many people dream of becoming entrepreneurs yet a few people will take a leap of faith to actualise such dreams.

This is what the school system does teach one – financial education.

Financial education and the transformation it delivers are essential for entrepreneurs because it teaches some fundamental principles of creating wealth and takes one from being a consumer to advancing to becoming a saver and ultimately attaining the height of an investor.

While these three cardinal factors are keys to remain poor and building wealth – consumption, savings and investments, the school systems really don’t teach the students about this.

One only gets to learn about this after leaving the school system.

This is part of the problem – lack of financial education.

One of the challenges in the contemporary school system is that it trains students to be A student in academics, to be B students in government establishments, and therefore leaving the very few C students, the very street smart, practical ones, to follow the entrepreneur path.

That doesn’t mean the school system is not good, it is of course, but in reality, its limitations to the classroom doesn’t reveal certain fundamentals about financial intelligence, the real life after classroom and how one can navigate all these vagaries and make the student achieve real financial intelligence and success is what the school system doesn’t teach you.

Emeka Monye Is A Journalist And Works With ARISE NEWS

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JUST IN: Filling stations shut after Dangote Refinery’s petrol price drop

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Some filling stations and petroleum products marketers, partners of Dangote Refinery’s petrol, temporarily shut down for the past five days after the latest premium motor spirit price drop by the 650,000 barrels per day refinery.

Recall that for the past five days, MRS filling stations in Abuja, along Kubwa Expressway, and others have not dispensed fuel since Dangote Refinery announced its ex-depot fuel price reduction to N835 per litre on Tuesday, 16 April, 2025.

An official of MRS filling station, who preferred anonymity because he is not authorised to speak said the filling station is grappling with the loss incurred after Dangote’s latest price adjustment.

“It is because of Dangote’s latest price drop. The filling station had old stock, which it couldn’t sell at a loss.

“This is the reason we have shut down since Tuesday. We may reopen on Tuesday,” he said.

Meanwhile, another official at the filling station said the retail outlet is billed to reopen on Tuesday, noting that it has been undergoing minor maintenance.

“We have been on maintenance for the past few days, which is the reason the station was shut. We will reopen on Tuesday,” he said.

According to him, the filling station would commence dispensing at the new price of N910 per litre from Tuesday.

Other partners of Dangote Refinery, such as AP, Ardova, and Optima, are dispensing fuel between N910 and 920 per litre in parts of Abuja as of Monday, 21st April 2025.

Reacting to the development, the National President of Petroleum Retailers Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, said the latest fuel price drop affected the purchasing power of petrol retailers and marketers.

According to him, indiscriminate price adjustment, whether downward or upward, is not good for the petroleum downstream sector and the Nigerian economy.

At every point, if prices of petrol are indiscriminately changed without any clearly defined economic reason, the chances that it will impact on the buying power of retailers and marketers are there.

“It is not good for business, the economy, and Nigerians.

“Prices of petrol change for reasons that are understandable with proper information to retailers,” he said.

Recall that Gillis-Harry had earlier called for a six-month fuel price stability plan to halt fluctuations.

Earlier, the spokesperson for the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chinedu Ukadike, had hinted that marketers having old stocks of fuel will incur billions of losses following Dangote’s latest fuel price drop.

Last week became the second time the $20 billion refinery reduced its fuel price nationwide. This indicates a combined downward ex-depot price drop of N45 per litre.

Dangote Refinery had, on 10 April, reduced its gantry price of petrol to N865 per litre.

However, the ex-depot fuel price had further dropped to N835 per litre.

This comes after the federal government’s renewed commitment to the indefinite continuation of the naira-for-crude deal with other local refiners and the drop in global crude prices to around $66 per barrel.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited recently reduced its retail price to N935 per litre for customers in Abuja in response to Dangote Refinery’s latest price cut.

This means that Nigerians currently buy petrol at between N890 and N950 per litre, depending on the location nationwide.

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NNPC’s Olufemi Soneye Emerges NIPR Spokesperson for 2025

Responding, Soneye attributed his recognition by the NIPR with its most exalted spokesperson’s award to the dedication of the entire team at the NNPC.

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Soneye (middle) receive NIPR’s prestigious award .

The Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mr. Olufemi Soneye, has emerged the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) spokesperson of 2025.Announcing the award, the NIPR described Soneye as a “diligent” spokesperson, characterising him as “a strategist.” Soneye’s capacity to shape public opinion, also stood him out of the crowd of spokespersons, according to the Adjudication Committee, Chairman, Dr. Shaibu Hussein.

Represented by a member of the committee chairman, Lami Tuiaka, the chairman said the moment to the conclusion of the award was rigorous and demanding. He also predicated Soneye’s victory on his communication skills, crisis management and overall impact.

“Our committee comprising communication scholars, Public Relations practitioners, and media personalities worked tirelessly to review the nomination, assess performances and deliberate on the winner.

I must report that we carefully examined each nomination, considering factors such as communication skills, crisis management and overall impact,” he said.

Presenting him the plaque at the National Spokespersons Award 2025, chairman of the event Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Power, Hon. Joshua Audu, said the institute would celebrate Soneye throughout 2025 as the current NIPR spokesperson award winner.

He said: ” On behalf of the NIPR Award Night 2025, I have the honour and privilege to present the Spokesperson of the year 2025. Please join me to celebrate our latest spokesperson that we will celebrate throughout 2025 in the person of Olufemi Soneye.”

Responding, Soneye attributed his recognition by the NIPR with its most exalted spokesperson’s award to the dedication of the entire team at the NNPC.

Amid a standing ovation, he said: “We are all happy and I am deeply honoured to receive this award tonight from NIPR. This award reflects the dedication of our entire team and we want to thank NIPR for all they have been doing.”

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Mission to boldly grow food in space labs blasts off

ESA is funding the research to explore new ways of reducing the cost of feeding an astronaut, which can cost up to £20,000 per day.

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Artwork: The experiment will orbit the Earth for three hours before returning to Earth and splashing down off the coast of Portugal.

(BBC): Steak, mashed potatoes and deserts for astronauts could soon be grown from individual cells in space if an experiment launched into orbit today is successful.

A European Space Agency (ESA) project is assessing the viability of growing so-called lab-grown food in the low gravity and higher radiation in orbit and on other worlds.

ESA is funding the research to explore new ways of reducing the cost of feeding an astronaut, which can cost up to £20,000 per day.

The team involved say the experiment is a first step to developing a small pilot food production plant on the International Space Station in two years’ time.

Lab-grown food will be essential if Nasa’s objective of making humanity a multi-planetary species were to be realised, claims Dr Aqeel Shamsul, CEO and founder of Bedford-based Frontier Space, which is developing the concept with researchers at Imperial College, London.

“Our dream is to have factories in orbit and on the Moon,” he told BBC News.

“We need to build manufacturing facilities off world if we are to provide the infrastructure to enable humans to live and work in space”.

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