Degrees vs Skills: The Way Forward to Developing Rural Societies in Africa

Lack of development in different societies of the world has been attributed to university education in recent times. Degrees are envisaged to be synonymous to skill acquisitions which are expected to be reflected in the society. Meanwhile, it remains controversial whether university education is actually responsible for development of skills and societies or not. Thus the reason for this study which adopts a review method. Relevant literatures were reviewed with regards to the subject matter. The findings show that university education can aid skills acquisition, promotion, amongst others. However, the findings also show that acquirement of degrees is not necessarily synonymous to skills acquisition and may not be a determinant to development in the society in some instances. Meanwhile, the relevance of degrees in skills acquisition is largely dependent on the type of designed education provided. The study recommends that focus and due attention should be given to education that enhances skills acquisition and promotes glocalization where students are trained to acquire and put to use skills that are needed in their society while using global standard. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.