PROTOCOL
It is with great pleasure that I address you here today on one of the most crucial issues of our time.
As the unfolding trends indicate, the twenty first century is set to be Information and knowledge-driven. Advances in the acquisition of knowledge give rise to profound changes in our intellectual behavior and the way humans relate to one another across the globe. Physical distances between people will shrink as knowledge and information are shared and exchanged within the twinkle of an eye - with the click of a button. Human race is et to record scientific and social progress and changes on an unprecedented scale. My concern in this address are the problems and challenges posed by these monumental changes and their effect on the continent of Africa and African people. The negative effects of these changes are going to be felt in Africa because of what I would broadly call “developmental deficits” which include abject poverty, lack of health facilities, housing and poor economic welfare. Chief among these developmental deficit is “ignorance” and ignorance has only one cure: EDUCATION!
The human intellect is what separates us from the rest of the animal world. Human civilization, itself a product of the human intellect, is propagated by the social need for older generations to pass on knowledge to the younger ones. Thus, education begins within the family as parents pass on knowledge to their children, so as to equip them for survival. As a child grows up, it completes its education with more knowledge from the rest of the community. Education is a tool for change. By educating a child, we equip him with a tool to change himself or herself as well as change the community in which he or she grows in. With education, man is the subject as well as the object of change. Education is a tool which is used to change man and with which man changes himself and the world around him.
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the point I am driving at is:
1) that education is the birth right of every child;
2)it is the duty of every community to educate its younger generation
It is possible that educational theories may have even reached this conclusion before me, but I feel I have to make it to underscore the problems of education in Africa today.
Education is the development of the human potential. Human beings are the architects and engineers of progressive change and development and they constitute the most important resource a nation can have. Internally, Africa’s development and progress will remain circumscribed for as long as ignorance prevails as a result of inadequate education. It follows that without that level of education internally, we cannot even begin to think of becoming part of the knowledge driven, information-conscious, high-tech controlled, and economically competitive world of the 21st century. Africa needs intensive human capital formation through education. This means that the conceptualisation, development, and execution of educational programmes in Africa should radically alter and no longer be a matter of “business as usual”.
Reconceptualising Education for Africa’s self Tassertiveness and global integration in the 21st century will involve a process of envisioning the competencies needed for the individual’s full membership of the 21st century, whose major thrusts we have earlier enunciated. That analysis indicates that the African-world citizen of the 21st century should be able to explore his r her immediate environment to exploit the resources [physical, social, etc.] for daily survival. The African should also be able to access the global knowledge generation arena and also be able to contribute to the world pool of knowledge. In addition, the African of the 21st century should be able to use knowledge and insight [from his immediate spatial environment and elsewhere] as a transformational tool, something with which to effect positive change in society. Above all, the 21st century African should be fully acculturated in the enduring values of Africa [including language, ethical and civic ideals, etc.], and these should serve as the window to a wider horizon of the universal values of human rights, peace, and democracy.
An essential element of the transformation that the educated African of this century will have to uphold is a new work ethic which places a high premium on the pursuit of excellence through enduring hard thinking and hard work.
The implications of all these is that the emphasis has to shift from the content of education to the processes. Africa (like the rest of humanity) should no longer ask "how much has the child learnt?" but "how learning-ready and how learning-involved has the child become?"
In Nigeria, the present, democratic regime is fully aware of the rot of our educational system in the last couple of decades. Which may be attributable in part to the social degeneration which the country witnessed under military dictatorship. The present government is engaged in a detailed, in-depth study of the challenges which educational decay poses to the development of our nation. These challenges include:
► a relatively high level of illiteracy, averaging 48% of tile adult population;
► disparities in access to education;
► a general loss of interest in the educational system ;
► poor quality outcomes, which is the result of poor quality inputs;
► lack of relevance to both contemporary socio-economic realities and to the future demands of an emergent society.
Therefore, if Nigeria is to move forward fast enough to be a forceful member of
transformation that lies ahead.
educational progress.
and a strong commitment to its vigorous promotion.
* the provision of free, universal basic education for every Nigerian child of school-going age.or another, have had to interrupt their schooling through appropriate forms of complementary approaches to the provisionand promotion of basic education;
ensuring the acquisition of the appropriate levels of literacy, numeracy, manipulative, communicative and life skills as well as the ethical, moral and civic values needed for laying a solid foundation for life-long learning.
In terms of scope Nigeria’s UBE encompasses the following:
above);
special programmes for nomadic populations;
will become normal practice.
quality inputs (teachers, infrastructure, funding, over-centralised management) and these are being addressed.
We envisage a sequential implementation strategy which will:progressively improve societal resources for the provision of early childhood care and education;
build on our gains in educating special groups (e.g. nomads) and promoting adult education and mass literacy, with a view to mainstreaming non-formal and alternative approaches to educational delivery;
progressively improving access to primary education, focusing on the socio-cultural, economic, and other possible obstacles to universal access;
* progressively improving facilities and structures to ensure quality and
efficiency;
* progressively improving transition rate from Primary to junior secondary education, rising from the 1999 national average of 55% to 100% in 2009.
* paying particular attention to the access of GIRLS to basic education as well as to their retention and success in school;
* mounting a vigorous value-orientation campaign in favour of the intrinsic value of education, with a view to addressing the strongly emerging phenomenon of boy drop-out in some parts of the country.
Talking about Nigeria means talking about relatively large numbers. It also means talking about wide regional differences. It means, finally, talking of social and political ccomplexities and high financial costs. We however believe that the following three ingredients will carry us through:
a strong political will (already demonstrated by our political parties and our three tiers of government - Federal, State, Local);
*an educational programme responsive to the needs of the real people;
* adequacy of financial and quality-related inputs.
This is what has been done by those countries in Africa which have come close to
realising the Jomtien goal of basic education for all (EFA) by the year 2000. A large number of African countries are still far from the goal for reasons related to:
political instability and social-conflicts;
*economic and financial problems, related to uncertainties in the price of primary commodities, the debt trap, etc;
*rapid population growth, with a huge dependent population;
*the pressure of other competing needs and problem areas (e.g. HIV/AIDS, infrastructural development, health care, etc).These are issues for African states to address in the context of regional integration programmes, as well as in the context of their relationships with the industrialised world.
The difference here is that the rapid, transformational changes of the century will result in drastic transformations in the conduct of human affairs.
The scientific and social progress to be recorded will, however, not be without problems and challenges for humankind. These problem and challenges are likely to be more acute in Africa, in view of the “developmental deficits" with which the region has entered the 21st century.
For Africa to regain her 'lost decades', which began in the 1980s, and the cumulative unfavourable effects which gave rise to the ' developmental deficits' of this new century, a number of pre-conditions will have to be met, namely:
► the building and consolidation of peace;
► the consolidation of democracy;
► more openness to the global community;
► improved management of the political system and of resources;
► the mobilisation, in full force, of human talents and of all the creative energies of the people.
PEACE BUILDING is the very foundation of it all. The series of internal strife which have replaced the conflicts related to the transfer of cold war political confrontations to Africa, will need to be put to rest, as nothing positive (in the form of social engineering) can take place in a climate of wars and conflicts.
DEMOCRACY, the political atmosphere that is open to all for the greatest good of all, is fast gaining ground in Africa. A lot still has to be done, however, for its principles and practices to become internalised by both the governors and the governed.
Most of the on-going wars and conflicts are infact related to Africa's failure to internalise and accept the ideals of democracy. There are strong pockets of groups who feel marginalized. There are rejected rulers who still cling on to power. There is the failure to ensure that the 'democracy dividend' is used for the benefit of every sector of every sector of society.
These issues will have to seriously addressed, to avoid disruptive upheavals capable of hindering tile process of nation building.
OPENNESS is important because the current century cannot afford to have closed societies. Any group, society or nation which wraps itself up in a cocoon will miss the opportunity of sharing in the knowledge and information revolution of the century and will remain completely marginalized. Therefore, more open societies built up through participatory democracy, with all the human rights and fundamental freedom that genuine democracy entails, are needed in Africa.
Ideally, and Africa should strive for the ideal situation, the region should be not a simple on-looker, but an active participant; not a simple absorber and consumer but a joint producer (of ideas, goods and services). Africa should also be a sharer (i.e. giving and also receiving); not simply a borrower (of ideas, products, funds).
JUDICIOUS MANAGEMENT of the entire polity, and of the national economy is a must, if Africa is to survive in the fast-moving world of the current century. This is closely linked to improved democratic governance, more openness in public dealings, and the mobilisation of (particularly) human resources for development in the real sense of the term.
While Africa will certainly require more resources to catch up with the rest of the world, the issue is more of one of maximizing the use of the resources available. It is also one of eliminating corruption and wasteful spending, and one of focusing on progressive ingenuity.
THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
The global village of the new century cannot afford (for reasons of equity, equality of nations, and world security) to have impoverished ghettos in its fringes. It is infact in the interest of the richer countries to come urgently to the assistance of the poorer ones. The key term is however assistance (that is, technical, logistic, and financial help in articulating endogenous ideas for development and seeing them to fruition, as well as in strengthening individual and institutional capacities). Imposition of ideas, programmes, products, and techniques with no endogenous roots have not paid and it will never pay.
There is therefore an urgent need to shift to that type of assistance that yields the desired dividends, especially in the field of Education. Here, tile international community will need to focus its assistance on:
* information exchange – making other experiences available to Africans;
facilitating inter-African exchanges;
* developing endogenous creative ideas and educational products;
*simplifying the process to, and reducing the costs of the transfer of
technology and knowledge, with specific reference to Education;
getting Africa out of the debt trap, to free resources for the development of Education.
CONCLUSION
The 21st century promises to be an exciting period in the evolution of humanity, with its potentials for wonders in various spheres of endeavour. This is already evident in current developments in current information technology as well as in various areas of science and technology.
Africa has come into the century with a ‘developmental deficit’ which we have to rid ourselves off. The deficit in the education sector is a high one. In the past forty years, vigorous efforts have been paid to reform education in Africa. These reforms have not succeeded or have often fallen short of achieving their goals for a variety of reasons. At the Jomtien World Conference on Education for All [March, 1990] Africa made a strong commitment to the generalization of basic education. For a combination of internal and external reasons this commitment has not been respected.
African countries are however still pushing for the regeneration of basic education. It seems, however, that the challenges of the new century are quite daunting. The international community will be required to assist the poorer countries of Africa to meet these challenges so that Africa will, early in the century, rise educationally to be part of the great world momentum of the current century. The principles of international solidarity call for no more.
I thank you all.