For a country such as Nigeria, the exigency of re-inventing our entire learning system cannot be overemphasized, and Nigerians do realize this. The current structure is too broken to provide the framework needed for widespread innovation and technological advancement. It’s also too unconnected and unsuitable for kick starting the entrepreneurial revolution that this country direly needs within its worsening national job crises. There is a need for a meaningful shift in the national learning system – mainly from a conceptual perspective. There are several models that could be adopted, but the most essential dimension to the discussion on renewing the Nigerian education system is the inclusion of ideas – probably radical ones – that reflect the scale of the challenge in the education sector and the economy at large.
Around the world – Stanford and MIT notably – radical innovation in the way people learn is becoming mainstreamed. In some countries, the need to totally rework education and learning systems emanate from the sheer fatigue and perceived inefficiency, of century-old systems of education that has become ubiquitous around the globe. Many countries are reviewing the learning structure and Nigerian should begin too. I believe that the business of education in Nigeria should proceed in a way that is 1) Focused 2) Straddled with “doing” 3) and With a Hybrid Curriculum.
Focused LEARNING
Recent discoveries, inventions and modern science have created a very wide array of academic sub-disciplines, such that students could be easily lost in the growing sea of data, superfluous knowledge and their equally superfluous utilization options. The traditional broad-spectrum curriculum can therefore become “a bit of everything and enough of nothing”. In essence, a reasonable portion of learning (about 70%) should be focused while a smaller portion (30%) follows a wider spread. Student should no longer arrive in class to study just business management, rather to learn the management of specific businesses or to solve specifically identified business problems. In the traditional learning methodology of faculty-dominated instruction, a focused model might seem hard to implement. However, if a focused learning approach is co-executed with the model of semi self-determined curriculum, then the quality of learning will be improved. In this model, learning therefore begins with the definition and proper understanding of each student’s learning expectations (i.e. the focused problem(s) that students are looking to solve or value they are looking to create).
Straddled with “Doing”
I believe that an effective education system for a country such as Nigeria must be optimally practical. There is an essential need for proper balance of theoretical learning and practical exposures. I am of the opinion that the impact of undergraduate education for example, will be great when it is closely woven with a real activity and within possible demonstration environments – for a sufficiently long time. That the opposite model worked in other countries does not imply it will work in a complex, developing and challenged nation, such as Nigeria. The immediate application of what is leant or the ability to learn from application (i.e. participating in real organizational problems) should be the summit and dominating aspect of education in Nigeria. Consequently, students should learn, practice and stimulate further learning within practical activities. Class room isolation and theory-dominated approaches have delivered little for this very country.
A HYBRID curriculum
Students should learn by using a curriculum with significant “self-contribution”. The diversity in personality, learning expectations and knowledge application also means a single objective curriculum will have less impact than a “hybrid curriculum”. A hybrid-curriculum is a product of a student-created curriculum and a standard objective curriculum. Through this, individual learning expectations will be well met and projected use of knowledge effectively achieved.
If students come to class with unique goals, they should be thought with unique curricula. Nevertheless for a small number of student in the “pre-eureka phase” (prior to self-discovery and vision definition) a standard “faculty’s opinion curriculum” should be an available option. A useful learner should arrive in class with a vision and the most useful schools should assist the student achieve that vision completely. This implies that an effective curriculum will have reasonable inputs from the students. Completely Inflexible curricula and which is often disconnected with personal aptitudes and career goals have also not lived up to expectation in Nigeria .In spite of the necessity for some level of uniformity and standardization, there should be a reasonable difference between the curriculum for a student learning in other to find an enterprise solution to the North-East’s water crisis and another student who wants to catalyze business expansion in Aba, Nigeria. One curriculum could work ONLY to the extent where their goals are similar. But a useful curriculum should immediately diverge once student’s learning expectations and intended applications diverge.
The way we learn is simply sub-optimal and unsuitable for the kind of problem we are trying to solve as a nation. Re-inventing century-old systems would surely come with some costs, shocks and challenges. And will entail even far reaching decisions/concepts than already outlined. But these hurdles do not provide significant reasons for continuing on a trajectory that has led to nowhere.
Chijioke Mama
Chijioke MAMA is the Founder of the Advisory Company Meiracopp Nigeria Limited (MNL) and a Doctoral Researcher in Business Management. Mail: m.chijioke @meiracopp.com
