Education for Personal and National Development: Critical Indices Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba Vice-Chancellor Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo ebonyi State Lecture To Mark the 50th Birthday of Prof. Dr. Johnny Ogunji and Prof. James Ogunji 1 st March 2017 at the Clifford University Ihie, Isiala Ngwa, Aba Preamble Professor Johnny Ogunji asked me to speak at this event marking the birthday of his twin brother James, and himself, and I am glad to oblige. I have known Johnny for some time now, I believe over a decade in the course of our academic career. I have also met James sometime last year. I thank them for this opportunity. My prayer is that God whom you obviously love and who has been so kind to you will continue to shower His grace upon you both. Happy birthday my friends, and many healthy and fruitful years in the future. Incidentally my youngest brother Kelechi Nwajiuba, also has birthday 1st March. This is an excellent pair. I am not sure there are many twins who are Professors. Perhaps the most significant testimony of my rating of them is that on assumption of office as Vice-Chancellor at the Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, I invited Johnny to head the team to articulate a School of Postgraduate Studies for us. In the course of his career, Johnny served as Dean of Postgraduate School at the Ebonyi State University and in that period, I was Dean of Postgraduate School at the Imo State University. When we decided to have a Faculty of Agriculture, Johnny again was asked to be the founding Dean of our new Faculty of Agriculture. May I also state that I belong to that discipline. These seem the equivalent of a medical Doctor recommending a particular Doctor for his family. That again shows my rating of him, and I make bold to say that we know that Johnny and James are world class academics. They belong to a narrow spectrum of Nigerian academics who can be appointed Professors in any University in the world. I believe their parents must be proud of them. I am also glad to state that in the course of our various interactions and the assignments we have carried out together, I can confirm that they meet the highest ethical standards expected of academics and, in this case, they are professed Christians. That the event of today is holding in a Christian arena tells a story about them. I therefore thank God for Christianity and what it brought to our part of the world. One of the many benefits of Christianity and its effect on enlightened culture, is that we have allowed twins to live. Many
years ago, that was different. If that was not the case, we would not have the privilege of this twin professors and all the blessing they have been. To God be all the glory. Very important among these contributions of Christianity to us is education. There is no doubt that education is important for personal and national development. The indices of these are all around us, and I am therefore glad to be discussing the topic as assigned, Education for personal and national development: critical indices. On this lecture, the topic, and what we must achieve As we may know, this type of lecture for an academic, falls into what we will describe as community service. That is the third leg in what we as academics are called to do. The first two are teaching and research. As a community service, of what use is it to me, and to you? For me it does not count for promotion (if I was still to be promoted). I wish therefore to declare my commitment and interest in this form of community service, which is simply that it contributes to bringing about positive change in any small way, even if for just one person. Recently I was discussing some aspects of the challenges of our society and time, in the area of indecent dressing with a clergy friend, the Venerable Ikechukwu Ihemtuge. I told him that we seem to have heard so many sermons and that I was wondering if anyone is listening. Surely there must be very little that is new to be said. Our Churches are filled for every event, but what change are we bringing about? The Venerable Ihemtuge assured me that some do listen, learn and change. My prayer and wish is that this lecture in honour of Johnny and James is able to bring even just one change, and perhaps in just one person. A central hypothesis I have contemplated about the drift in our society is our weakness and failure to have personal commitment, and the widespread failure on our part for personal example. We know it. We have heard it. We talk it. We preach it. But we are unable to live it. Examples are common in our society and I list a few: - The professor who does not teach and in fact abuses the student, but gladly accepts his salary. - The priest who gives the wonderful sermon against stealing but steals church money. - The eloquently speaking high office holder who often reads a speech against corruption, but diverts public funds. - The committed Christian mother/wife who engages in marriage counselling but disobeys her husband. - The police man who reminds you that the police is your friend, but sees only the naira notes in your pocket every time. - The school principal who ensures the classes on moral instruction and civic education hold, but arranges for examination malpractice. - The medical biochemist who attributes health challenges to voodoo. - The state Governor who gladly enjoys being addressed as His Excellency, but is commonly late to official events. - All of us who eat foreign produced food, wear foreign made clothes, use foreign made means of transport, medicine, communication, etc., but shout about unemployment, poverty, deviant behaviour, etc.
What we intend here is for us to find one aspect in which we do not meet the implication of our calling and position and firmly resolve to change for the better. Can we therefore pause at this moment to reflect on this? Is there any aspect of life that you know within you that needs changed? Please take that step and change. God bless you. Some persons must be wondering what these have to do with education. It is simply that education acculturates and manifests in our choices. What we are taught (and what we learn) determine what we know and how we behave as well as what characters and skills we possess - the floor on which our personal and national development rest. These can be seen at the personal level, which aggregate to the national level. Education? In the specific case of the title of this lecture, Education for personal and national development: critical indices, can we think of one area that requires positive change on our part? Are you in any way involved with the mis-education of the Nigeria child (Abigail Ocheibi; 2017). Without doubt, education is important for personal and national development, and there are critical indices of this. But before dealing with these we need to emphasize that we are dealing with the formal education as introduced in the colonial times and which we have since kept in Nigeria. Elements of this are adroitly presented by Chinua Achebe (2009) in his book on the Education of a British-Protected Child. This contrasts with traditional forms of education, which our part of the world had prior to colonialism. In that era, education, though informal was conducted at the family and communal levels. It guided our society in areas including livelihood, family, morality, duties at each level and each groups, roles and responsibilities, as well as benefits to each person on every circumstance. It seems obvious that this traditional education is under sever threat due to urbanization, absentee parents, peers, internet and other ICT facilities. The main agents of educating our children and socializing them are no longer the parents and the family. It is now common to say, this child has well-known and well-behaved parents, but why is he/she exhibiting several deviant behaviours? However, our focus here is on the formal education through an organized school system. In Nigeria, we have the pre-primary, the primary, secondary, and tertiary. Johnny and James are engaged with the tertiary at the moment, specifically the university. I will focus on the tertiary, as commenting on all levels will be an enormous venture. University education in Nigeria started as a super-elite engagement to produce persons who would be employed in the senior civil service and the top levels in the private sector. That was fairly workable up till the early 1980s. The curriculum of the era suited that period. The labour market absorbed nearly all who came out of the universities. Today, that has changed. As this has become the case, training people in the universities is no more about finding them paid employment upon graduation. What is relevant today is emphasis on entrepreneurship, and graduates who can create enterprises which can also employ people. Interestingly, at the Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, where we recently started a new faculty of Agriculture with Johnny as Dean, we are approaching it differently. We have commenced a new concept in degree programme in Agriculture in the university system in Nigeria, with farms and agribusiness being created at the same time, including staff cooperative society, which have private sector investors, and partnership. Unlike what is commonly the case in the Nigeria university system, we are not creating university farms that will be run like government agencies, but will be run as private businesses. Our students will be trained in these farms, and prepared to own and run agribusinesses upon graduation.
I know that this may not be too far from what some of the people here are familiar with. At the Babcock University where my son is studying Economics, I am aware that in this session he got a piece of land to plant some crops including okra. This is commendable. The proprietors of the new Clifford University, where we are today, I believe are thinking along the same line. That is what all universities in Nigeria should be doing. Some Contemporary challenges of education in Nigeria beyond the university system Deliberately, I chose not to have a long lecture, but I must mention something you already know, which is that there are serious challenges at every level, beyond the universities, in Nigeria. By virtue of my present duties, I often read application letters written by persons seeking employment, and almost all of them with impressive university degrees. One thing they appear to have in common is that many of them cannot write proper formal letters. Why would university degree holders not be able to write correct application letters? Letter writing is not learnt at the university level. I recall we learnt that at the primary school level. In any case, formal and informal letters typically featured in our school certificate examinations at the end of secondary school. What this implies is that people have passed through the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, without acquiring basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Have you seen the number of persons who in multiplying 10 by 10 pick up a calculator? How did we degenerate to this level? Many factors are implicated. These include: - Wrong policy of promoting everyone from one class to a higher class, in primary schools, whether or not they passed the examinations at the end of each school year. The motivation for hard work and studiousness is negatively impacted. - Poor quality teachers, many of whom cannot pass an examination in the subjects they teach. Many teachers are basically unfit to teach, and no supervision of what they are doing with the pupils. Some teachers are not paid salaries after buying employment as teachers. - Examination malpractices commencing from the primary level such as common entrance examinations, till the chaos at the secondary level with special centres, up to the mess at the tertiary level. If these were the 1970s, majority of the undergraduates today will not be anywhere near a university. - Very distracted pupil and students, who spend more time on phones, internet, watching and memorizing names of footballers all over the world and very little time devoted to studying. The collapse of values and mores in the society, has eclipsed the schools at every level. We have created a society where every young man wants to be a millionaire, and every young lady wants to look like a movie star. That society is utopian. Meanwhile, many of the products of the universities with degree certificates have ended up being phone re-charge card sellers and Tricycle riders. Do you need to spend all those years pretending to be studying, spending thousands if not millions of Naira to buy a place in secondary school, cheat in School certificate, buy a place in the university, and buy marks through universities, only to end up as recharge card sellers and Tricycle riders? The skills required can surely be acquired without such waste of time and other resources. Are parents, of all calling and vocations, not accomplices in this? Can they change?
There are many more reasons for the sad state of education in Nigeria. Conclusion We go back to the basic interest in this lecture which is the power of personal conviction and action. We know what is wrong, and we know we should reverse this for personal and national development. The challenge is simply take action where it concerns you, and change. Of what use is this lecture to you? Can each of us make a personal commitment? Where does it concern you? Can you just simply decide to change? If you do that, there will be personal development for you. If you do that, the sum of each personal development will be an aggregate national development. Thank you, Literature cited The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays Hardcover October 6, 2009 by Chinua Achebe MISEDUCATION OF THE NIGERIAN CHILD: When Those Entrusted To Teach Are Uneducated (LOOK) Published by Abigail Ocheibi - February 9, 2017 1:49 PM (https://thesheet.ng/miseducation-of-thenigerian-child-when-those-entrusted-to-teach-are-uneducated-look/).