“The basic purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” Ancient Wisdom
It will amount to a crass understatement to evaluate the back page topic of the Guardian newspaper on Sunday 17th December 2023 as merely classical. The paper’s erstwhile managing director Martins Oloja writing topic “Time To Restore ‘Universe’ To Our Universities” is a great eye-opener. This observation of our tertiary institutions backsliding into redundancy, moribund, and misplacement cannot be overemphasised. There is hardly more to add to the running series by Mr Oloja as it is exhaustive. Nevertheless, there will always be room for expansion and innovation, hence this presentation.
The current rapid growth and innovation on the global spectrum do not condone institutional backwardness and retardation. The advanced education system transcends the traditional style of classroom lectures and attendance system. This is a pattern of education that supports, especially at the tertiary level, the impartation of knowledge “from the pulpit to the pew” or “from the professor to the pupils” cast on stones and immutable supposedly in an evolutionary world like ours currently! The world is fast evolving. In every ramification from microeconomics to the macroeconomy, advanced science, and technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) redefines human involvement in virtually all daily affairs, activities, and conversations. The list seems endless.
They are abandoned in the past.
If proper attention is not given to this development and a future-determining factor, the time will arrive shortly when the management board of Nigeria’s universities deploy a lecturer but only realises they will be lecturing in a deserted classroom. This redefining moment requires foresightedness to engage robustly to avoid being left behind. Not in the distant past, I did an unusual article published in the Blueprint newspaper on the contentious topic of ‘Information Revolution: The Maverick Sovereign Individual.’ That uncommon discourse delves into what shall soon become a global phenomenon… how constituted authorities will be rendered redundant and rudderless. Empowered by the rapidly digitalized world system, the individual operator functions and determines his sovereignty seamlessly and unhindered. The government, with all its extant and binding rules and regulations geared toward extracting natural riches and resources for the good of the privileged few, shall begin to grapple with the loss of control fatigue.
Things are no longer the way it used to be.
The experience of this writer in one of our federal universities in summary will be crucially pertinent in the present context. A nation that has learned to make things difficult for her populace of those affairs that are ordinarily simple, cannot witness sustainable coexistence and coherence. The basic concept of the traditional system of learning establishing tertiary institutions is not to hamper, dictate for, control, or determine the academic performance of a student under its tutelage. It is an ivory tower indeed where you are encouraged to climb up to and soar limitlessly. It is a universal entity where the acquisition of knowledge is individually designed to match the peculiar interests and potentials of the candidate only supervised by articulate and erudite academic masters otherwise called lecturers. They function to evaluate and authenticate the discoveries, and sterling academic performances, reaffirm effective knowledge, ascertain advanced and notable breakthroughs recorded and credited to the rightful owner, and award recognition for wholesome academic performances.
It would be disgusting to narrate in detail what is obtainable in our so-called tertiary institutions. A mild critic has given Nigeria public universities a rueful name – “a glorified secondary school.” The privately owned universities here seem to have a semblance of what a standard university ought to be. Foreign-based universities, as currently known, capture the essence and experience of an advanced education system should typify. Undoubtedly, this is what some Nigerian public servants realised and would rather send their children and wards out to access while they continue to undermine efforts for their national rebirth in the education sector. What is the definition of sabotage again?
The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here with us. The robotic human that is programmed to perform, from start to finish, our daily activities, has already been deployed in many parts of the world. The study of this out-of-this-world phenomenon can be learned in the comfort of your home enabled by access to the internet. Most of the eminent, world-class, and prestigious universities have long upgraded their curriculum to accommodate this program. Does anyone need to ask if the primordial stereotype of Nigerian education managers has released them enough to begin to imagine introducing this opportunity? The advantages of applying an advanced system of anything with a focus on finding working solutions to existing problems should not be antagonised.
Finally, the Nigerian government should wake up to its responsibilities and demonstrate in practice its loudly acclaimed capacity to deliver dividends to the people. The welfare question of the people is all time widespread and weeping. The watershed here is owning up. Until there is that realisation that things have fallen apart owing to the long-standing failures of the government, no progress may be achieved. Similarly, the reconnaissance in our educational sector will begin with the budget apportionment. The prohibition of foreign education by the children and wards of our public servants should be enforced forthwith. This will go a long way to localise strategies and efforts to redeem the dwindling education and its lifeblood and stability.
Steve Obum Orajiaku
Lagos
[email protected]
