Guardian

EVERYTHING about Dr. Rosemary Nwangwu suggests that she may be a candidate for Miss Nigeria; she is pretty, sassy, open and welcoming to friends and strangers alike. But there ends the comparison between this hardnosed academic and bimbos on catwalk.

However, if you are an avid reader of bedtime stories, then hold your breathe for the princess is about to kiss the frog prince of Nigeria’s dilemmas – the education sector. Will she bring it to life? That was the million dollar question on the lips of everyone when she mounted the rostrum at the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja last Thursday. You will hear the pin drop as this international education and development expert, took on one of the most daring academic challenges in the land; expectations were high because she had rescued several failing schools and education systems around the world.

State governments and dignitaries from all walks of life gathered to share her views as she launched two critically acclaimed books on the Nigerian educational system.

A seasoned Educationist, a professional teacher, a veteran in development assistance, Dr Nwangwu had led a number of teams in developing technical reports ranging from assessing the performance of states in the SEEDS benchmarking exercise to collating programmatic outputs in the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). She generated country reports in the State of Eritrea in the Horn of Africa and served on advisory capacity on the development of similar reports in other countries.

In Nigeria, Nwangwu was a team member that developed the UNESCO National Education Support Strategy (UNESS) 2006-2015 for Nigeria and in 2010, led the country Team in developing Nigeria’s report for the E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting presented during Nigeria’s hosting of the meeting in Abuja.

With more than 27 years of practice under her belt, Nwangwu who designed the maiden UCPD, a document that collates all the programmatic activities of UNESCO in Member States in the Agency’s mandate areas of Education, Science, Culture and Communication was in her elements. Our reporter who attended the event spoke with Dr. Nwangwu on the serial failures of Nigeria’s education system and the path out of the woods. Excerpts.

Your new books — the Transformational Teacher and Taking Responsibility for School improvement; a handbook for principals and head teachers seeks to place responsibility for schooling and learning achievements squarely on the shoulders of Nigerian teachers. Considering that teachers are poorly paid, poorly trained, constantly owed, and oftentimes voiceless and powerless, do you think they are in any position to take responsibility for our failing schools?

The assertions are right and so are the worries that you have mentioned. However the teacher has a job to do, a job that he or she sought and gave thanks for receiving. That job needs to be done! The teacher understood pretty well what is expected when he/she signed own for the responsibility. Other professionals are also being faced with a lot of definitive challenges. Teachers will be no exception in creating a semblance of authority around their domains of control - the classroom and the school. Even with these worries, a few teachers are still able to define their work beyond pecuniary considerations and such teachers persist in packaging themselves as the professionals

You seem to believe that no excuses is good enough for failure, however, have you ignored the fact that schools exist in certain ecosystems and cannot be but a reflection of the attitude of the society towards education. Why did you single out the teacher?

Again you are right and that is why the last chapter deals with Government taking responsibility. Schools do exist in ecosystems and have always been that way. That is why the book dwelt on stakeholders collectively showing interest in education and supporting teachers. The fact remains that teachers have a responsibility to at least get their jobs done which is no longer the case at the moment. The predominant case is that of lamenting their state and having no sense of responsibility for the goings-on in the system.

The book also recognizes the role of society in holding up the quality of education by value demonstrated by society. The book highlights the role of society in the demand side of education. This is demonstrated in support and interest in the conduct and welfare of teachers.

Anyone who witnessed the encomiums and critical acclaim your books earned today would ask why the celebrations! Many of those who praised your books said you have your fingers on the pulse of our educational system. Do you feel that way? And as a follow up, what in your view is wrong with our educational system?

Our educational system suffers from a lack of attention to the real issues namely the goings-on in the classroom. Part of our problem also is that we emphasize the infrastructure and by implications the supply side of educational inputs. The aspect of content is hardly attended to. The two are such positive comments because they touch on the soft issues, the content part of educational development. The pulse of the system is the teacher. The teacher not just their certificates!

Our educational system is riddled by such other issues as lack of planning and non-existence of proper projections. So we do not know what our school systems really need and how soon, how soon and in what quantum.

Those are serious assertions; we have always had development plans and policies, when did we run into this conundrum?

Since after the era of Rolling Plans, the education system has failed woefully to stick to any strategic plan whether referred to as framework or roadmap. In 2006 UNESCO supported Nigeria with an education sector analysis that was supposed to project short, medium and long term plans. Models were simulated and dumped by successive governments. Soon after, the Obasanjo Administration introduced the Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS). This too was not adhered to. There seems to be an inherent ad hocism ingrained in the system where people scratch their heads and come up with one thing or another to do. Oftentimes policies exist but are not implemented. Programmes are initiated on paper with no ability to translate policies into programmes and plans.

Sounds like all motions and no movements, who gets the blames for all these? Have you any response or palliatives for our educational system that seem bent on turning Nigerian youths into illiterates and half-baked graduates?

Yes indeed it is a series of motions and absolutely no movement. We have not learnt to translate the curriculum into practical realities or equip the teacher to interested and teach the curriculum correctly. I do believe that the solution is easy if we are sincere about getting it right. We need to get down to the schools as the primary functional units of an education system. We need to empower key players at the school level and these are the teachers and head teachers. The head teacher is the first instructional leader of the school and should be taught to take this responsibility seriously. When Head teachers are empowered, they support their teachers and harness the support of communities. The education system will therefore work better if schools and communities are empowered to become functional elements in the school. Mentors are also needed to groom new teachers and serve as role models for these teachers. These are policies that can work and requires the bottom up approach. This requires celebrating the head teacher who can run the school given appropriate incentive mechanisms. The reward system will create a healthy competition among schools.

These are interesting perspectives, but first convince me that you understand the full gamut of the issues; what has school attainment been like in the different zones? Are there examples of what you are advocating for Nigeria anywhere in the world?

School attainment has been very poor. Our children are not doing well at school. And they start failing all the way from enrolment in primary one. Since 2008 there has not been up to 30 percent pass at WAEC SSCE in many of the states. Some states including Bauchi, Imo, Anambra and Rivers have scored up just above 40 percent on average.

A pass mark at SSCE is 5 credits and not up to 30 percent of our children score up this mark. In some states pass marks have been 0.45 percent and below. Such states include Yobe which has scored 0.45 in 2008; 0.14 in 2009 and 0.04 in 2010. Gombe scored 0.50 in 2008; 1.59 in 2009; and 0.13 in 2010. There are other bad results but these are the worst ones.

Besides examinations, the monitoring of learning achievement tests conducted in Nigeria in 2006 among primaries 4 & 6; JSS 2 and SS2 shows that children are unable to read and write failing in literacy, numeracy and life skills.  All over the world, the curriculum is being translated into competences.

These are serious indictments and what do you think has become of these children? What can be done to remedy the situation? Is anarchy staring us in the face?

These children are sadly lost. They have been given damaged collaterals. They have been processed into nothingness and are no use to themselves or society. These young people fall into the youth category of ages 15-35. The latest statistics from the World Bank shows a spread of the youths in this range. According to the statistics presented at the Nigerian private sector economic forum, 21.4 million of Nigerian youths are in schools; 4.7 million are in wage employment; 14.2 in the farms and 13.4 million are working at their own enterprise. A whopping 11.2 million have no employment at all. This is a disaster waiting to happen. The issue is that even those on wage employment have no security in their jobs. Any little occurrence disrupts the work of these young people. The fact is that none of these young people is assured of livelihood secured or none secured.

The 11.2 who are idle are canon folders and a threat to the country. These young people may be geniuses in their own ways. But undeveloped, they can easily turn these into negative activities that further threaten the peace of the country.