I sat in a lecturer's office at a federal university in Ibadan last year, watching him shake his head over a stack of exam scripts. He had asked his third-year students a simple question: "Name the current governor of your state and list three policies his administration has implemented in the last two years." Out of a class of forty students, only four could answer. The rest either left it blank or wrote the name of a governor who had left office over a decade ago.
These were university students. Third-year students. People who had spent the last two years reading textbooks, attending lectures, and writing exams. And yet, they could not name the person governing the state they lived in.
I thought this was an isolated incident until I read a similar account from a lecturer at the University of Ibadan who wrote that he has met undergraduates who cannot spell simple words, read a paragraph smoothly, or complete assignments without copying directly from classmates or downloading material from the internet without understanding it. "Basic understanding, focus, curiosity, and critical thinking are missing," he wrote, "yet these students come fully certified as 'qualified'".
This is what happens when Nigerian students read only their textbooks. This is what happens when education becomes about passing exams rather than understanding the world. This is what happens when we mistake certification for competence.
Here is the uncomfortable truth that nobody tells you in secondary school or university: textbooks will not make you rich. Textbooks will not make you employable. Textbooks will not make you smart. They will give you grades. They will give you a certificate. They will give you a piece of paper that says you are qualified.
But the real world does not care about your grades. The real world cares about what you can do. And if all you have ever done is memorise textbooks, you cannot do very much.
The Grade-Chasing Trap
Let us be honest about what is really happening in Nigerian schools. Students read for one reason and one reason only: to pass exams. Not to understand. Not to learn. Not to grow. To pass.A 2024 article on the reading culture of Nigerian students observed that many Nigerians do not read for pleasure or for what they need to learn but for what they want to achieve, and after that the reading stops. Students in higher institutions find it difficult to read when it has nothing to do with assignments, presentations, term papers, or examination periods.
Think about that. Students will only read when there is a grade at the end of it. Anything outside of textbooks and notebooks is kept at bay. Students have streamlined their minds towards a particular goal: GRADES. Grades are the supplier of their zeal and their morale-booster. Grades are the reason they open a book.
But here is the problem: grades are not understanding. You can get an "A" in a course and not be able to define its basics. You can graduate with a first-class degree and fail a test that someone with a third-class passes. You can have a certificate and not have a clue.
A lecturer at a Nigerian university captured this perfectly when he wrote: "Students respond to incentives. When effort is not rewarded, promotion is automatic, and failure has no real consequences, disengagement becomes logical. A student who has never been pushed to read, write, or defend ideas will not suddenly change upon entering the university".
The system rewards memorisation, not understanding. It rewards routine, not curiosity. It rewards conformity, not creativity. And students have learned exactly how to play that game. They memorise, they write, they pass, they forget. And then they graduate and wonder why nobody wants to hire them.
The Numbers That Should Terrify You
In 2025, over 1.9 million candidates sat for the UTME. Of these, only 12,414 scored above 300. More than 1.5 million students scored below 200. That means less than one percent of candidates performed at a level that could be considered excellent.
The West African Examinations Council reported in 2024 that only 72.12% of candidates obtained at least five credits, including English and Mathematics—a 7.69% drop from the 2023 exam. The National Examinations Council has reported similar trends.
Experts say these numbers reflect a deeper systemic issue: a deteriorating reading culture among Nigerian students. But it is worse than that. These numbers reflect a system that has trained students to read for exams and nothing else. A system that has produced a generation of certified graduates who cannot think.
A study of secondary school students in Ibadan found that adolescents had moderately high levels of poverty and peer pressure but a low reading culture level. The study found a weak, negative, and significant correlation between poverty level and reading culture. In other words, the poorer you are, the less you read. And the less you read, the poorer you stay.
Another study of students at Federal Polytechnic, Offa, found that respondents were highly exposed to social media, with most spending just one to two hours on reading per day, while some hardly read at all but always stayed on social media for nothing less than three hours.
You are spending more time watching other people live their lives than you are spending improving your own. And you are wondering why you are struggling.
What You Actually Lose by Not Reading Beyond Textbooks
So what do you actually lose when you refuse to read beyond your textbooks? Let me count the ways.You lose critical thinking. A recent report revealed that Nigerian graduate trainees had only a thirty-seven percent pass rate for critical reasoning, compared to sixty-six percent for numerical reasoning and sixty-one percent for verbal reasoning. The report attributed this low pass rate to the reliance on memorisation rather than problem-solving in the education system.
Think about what that means. Only thirty-seven out of every one hundred Nigerian graduates can think critically. Only thirty-seven can analyse information, solve problems, and make good decisions. The rest? They can memorise. They can regurgitate. But they cannot think.
A separate study found that students who scored low in critical thinking had little or no problem-solving skills. Critical thinking, the study concluded, is strongly needed for any meaningful technological development to take place in Nigeria. Without critical thinking, there is no innovation. Without innovation, there is no progress. Without progress, there is no wealth.
You lose employability. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund boss warned that many Nigerian graduates are considered unemployable due to a lack of practical skills, limited exposure to real-world applications, and an education system that prioritises rote learning over critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. Employers have argued that Nigerian graduates lack job-ready competencies, compelling many firms to conduct expensive in-house training or engage foreign expatriates.
According to industry reports, seventy percent of Nigerian employers struggle to find qualified candidates despite millions of graduates entering the workforce annually. Over eighty-five percent of Nigerian graduates lack digital skills. Many students graduate with skills that are not in line with market demands.
You have a degree. You have a certificate. But you do not have the skills. And employers know it.
You lose the ability to adapt. The world is changing faster than ever. Technology is disrupting industries. Jobs are disappearing. New ones are appearing. The jobs of tomorrow are evolving faster than our classrooms. If all you know is what your textbook taught you, you are already obsolete.
Irene Okon, executive director of Lead-Out, warned that "if you don't read, you risk becoming one of those unemployable graduates". Reading, she said, is a life-saving habit more Nigerians must embrace to foster personal and societal growth.
You lose perspective. Textbooks are narrow. They teach you one subject, one discipline, one way of seeing the world. But the real world is not narrow. It is complex. It is messy. It requires you to understand economics and psychology and history and politics and technology all at the same time.
When you read beyond textbooks, you learn how other people think. You learn how they solve problems. You learn how they see the world. This makes you more empathetic, more creative, and more innovative. It helps you see opportunities that other people miss.
A 16-year-old student who scored 341 in the 2025 UTME said she enjoys reading even beyond what she is expected to read. She reads textbooks, notebooks, past questions, novels, and literary texts. She aspires to be a writer and to be relevant in the technological space, working in artificial intelligence, engineering, and robotics.
That is what reading beyond textbooks does. It opens doors. It expands horizons. It shows you what is possible.
The "School Na Scam" Ideology and Why It Is Dangerous
There is a growing ideology among some Nigerian youths that "school na scam." The idea is that education is worthless, that reading is a waste of time, and that the only way to get ahead is through quick money—betting, scams, or luck.This ideology is dangerous for two reasons.
First, it is wrong. Education is not a scam. School is not a scam. The scam is treating education as a certificate to be obtained rather than a discipline to be endured. The scam is believing that a degree is the end rather than the beginning. The scam is thinking that passing exams is the same as learning.
Second, this ideology is a trap. It convinces young people to give up on the one thing that could actually help them escape poverty: knowledge. It tells them that reading is useless while they spend hours scrolling through social media, watching other people succeed while they stagnate.
The lack of reading culture among undergraduate students in Nigeria is predominantly caused by social media addiction. Students are addicted to their phones. They are addicted to entertainment. They are addicted to distraction. And they have convinced themselves that education is a scam so they do not have to feel guilty about it.
But here is the truth: the people telling you that school is a scam are not the ones succeeding. The people succeeding are reading. They are learning. They are growing. They are investing in themselves.
What the Wealthy and Successful Do Differently
Let me tell you what successful people do that you are not doing.They read for knowledge, not for grades. A study of millionaires found that eighty-eight percent of wealthy people read for thirty minutes daily for self-education. Not fiction. Not entertainment. Educational content that directly increases their earning potential.
They are not reading to pass an exam. They are reading to get smarter. They are reading to get better. They are reading to get richer.
They read widely. They do not limit themselves to one subject or one discipline. They read about business and psychology and history and technology and philosophy. They understand that the world is interconnected and that the best ideas come from connecting different fields.
They read critically. They do not accept everything they read as true. They question. They analyse. They think. They form their own opinions. They do not just memorise; they understand.
They apply what they read. Knowledge without action is worthless. Successful people read, learn, and then do. They take what they have learned and apply it to their lives, their businesses, their careers.
You are doing none of these things. You are reading to pass. You are reading narrowly. You are reading passively. And you are not applying anything.
And you are wondering why you are not successful.
The Counter-Argument: Is Reading Really the Answer?
I know what some of you are thinking. You are thinking, "But what about all the educated people who are still unemployed? What about all the graduates who cannot find jobs? What about all the people who read and are still poor?"These are fair questions. And they deserve honest answers.
First, reading alone is not enough. You have to read the right things. Reading a textbook on a subject that nobody cares about is not going to make you rich. You need to read things that build your skills, expand your knowledge, and improve your mindset.
Second, reading has to be combined with action. You can read a hundred books on entrepreneurship, but if you never start a business, nothing changes. You can read fifty books on personal finance, but if you never save or invest, nothing changes.
Third, the system is broken. Yes, there are systemic issues—unemployment, poor infrastructure, corruption, lack of opportunities. These are real problems, and reading alone will not solve them. But not reading will definitely not solve them either.
The point is not that reading is a magic bullet. The point is that not reading is a guaranteed way to stay poor and unemployable. If you are not reading, you are not growing. If you are not growing, you are falling behind. And if you are falling behind in this economy, you are heading for poverty.
The Generational Cost of Not Reading Beyond Textbooks
Here is the part that should really scare you. The reading crisis in Nigeria is not just about you. It is about your children. It is about the next generation. It is about the future of this country.If you are not reading, what example are you setting for your children? If they never see you with a book, why would they pick one up? If you spend your evenings scrolling through social media, why would they spend theirs reading?
Nigeria currently has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in the world. According to UNICEF, 10.2 million children of primary school age are not in school. And even among those who are in school, only twenty-seven percent of children aged seven to fourteen have foundational reading skills.
We are raising a generation that cannot read, does not read, and will not read. And we are wondering why the country is not progressing.
A lecturer at a Nigerian university wrote that he has seen Nigeria's education system from both ends—secondary school and university—and what he sees daily in the university classroom is no longer just the problem of weak preparation; it is something deeper and more disturbing. "Basic understanding, focus, curiosity, and critical thinking are missing," he wrote. "This growing gap between certificates and actual ability raises difficult questions about where our education system is failing".
Those questions need to be answered. And the answers start with you. They start with all of us deciding that reading matters. That understanding matters. That thinking matters.
How to Break Free from the Textbook Trap
If you have made it this far, you are probably convinced that reading beyond textbooks matters. But knowing and doing are two different things. Here is how to actually start reading beyond your textbooks and make it a habit:1. Read for pleasure. Find something you enjoy reading. It does not have to be academic. It does not have to be serious. It just has to be something that makes you want to read. Novels, biographies, history, self-improvement, business—whatever interests you. The goal is to enjoy the process so you keep doing it.
2. Read widely. Do not limit yourself to your field of study. If you are studying engineering, read about business. If you are studying law, read about technology. If you are studying medicine, read about economics. The world is interconnected, and the best ideas come from connecting different fields.
3. Read critically. Do not accept everything you read as true. Question it. Analyse it. Think about it. Form your own opinions. This is how you develop critical thinking skills. This is how you become a better problem-solver. This is how you become more valuable.
4. Read consistently. Set a specific time to read every day. Even fifteen minutes a day is better than nothing. The goal is consistency, not volume. Make reading part of your routine.
5. Apply what you read. Take notes. Implement ideas. Share what you have learned with others. This makes reading active rather than passive. This is how you turn knowledge into action. This is how you turn reading into wealth.
6. Join a community. Find people who read. Join a book club. Follow book reviewers. Share what you are reading. This keeps you motivated and exposes you to new ideas.
7. Start now. Do not wait until you have finished your exams. Do not wait until you have graduated. Start today. Pick up a book that is not a textbook and start reading. The sooner you start, the sooner you will see the benefits.
The Choice Is Yours
You can keep doing what you are doing. You can keep reading only to pass exams. You can keep memorising and forgetting. You can keep getting grades without understanding. You can keep graduating without skills. You can keep wondering why nobody wants to hire you.Or you can start reading beyond your textbooks.
You can decide that you are going to learn for life, not just for exams. You can decide that you are going to understand, not just memorise. You can decide that you are going to think, not just regurgitate. You can decide that you are going to be employable, not just certified.
The choice is yours. But make no mistake: every day you choose not to read beyond your textbooks, you are choosing to be less employable, less capable, and less successful. It is that simple.
I am not saying it is easy. I am not saying that reading beyond textbooks will magically solve all your problems. I am saying that it is a necessary condition for success. You cannot get ahead without knowledge. You cannot get knowledge without reading. You cannot read without making a deliberate choice to do so.
So what is it going to be? Are you going to keep reading only your textbooks? Or are you going to start reading for your future?
The answer to that question will determine the answer to a much bigger question: Will you be employable, or will you be unemployable? Will you be successful, or will you be stuck?