“If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interests”.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
One of the clearly distinguishing characteristics of human beings is our remarkable capacity to learn. It may seem a bold statement to make, but I would venture to say that everyone learns. While each individual possesses the ability to learn, it is recognised that we learn in different ways and develop different learning behaviours and patterns. It seems that from an early age learners begin to develop individual methods and strategies by which they learn best. These characteristic learning behaviours and patterns are often referred to as learning styles; these styles change as research are carried out to ascertain the best that suits a society.
While other societies are able to change and adapt positively to a rapidly changing world where the acquisition and application of knowledge is the driving force, Nigeria is not easily susceptible to change and believe in doing the same old things that has consistently led nowhere. Why are we scared of change? Why can’t we face our fears and allow rational thinking take us out of the woods? Why will our tertiary institutions continue to churn out “graduates” we all know cannot fit into the workings of a technologically driven world? Why do we love playing the ostrich with the future of generations of Nigerians? I can go on with questions throughout this piece today and the answers may remain elusive.
But something deep down tells me we know the right things to do but from an inexplicable standpoint we often lack the “political will” to carry out fundamental and critical reforms that we urgently need. Close watchers of our tertiary education system have for years been pointing out that the present system of churning out “unemployable” graduates (apologies to Prof Charles Soludo) will only compound the crisis of unemployment in the country, but we often turn a blind eye and pretend we are making “progress” clinging to the old system.
So it was a bit surprising to me when Prof Adebiyi Daramola, Vice Chancellor Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) challenged lecturers to move away from “faculty-centred and lecture based paradigm” to practical learning and teaching. “This” according to the Prof “is in line with the global trend where faculty members become learning environment designers and students are taught critical thinking skills”. He spoke at an event organized by the university to appraise its blended learning support programme (Leaning).
He told his colleagues to support students by adding to their intellectual growth and by instilling in them the awareness of important social issues and supporting their ability to become more productive members of society and life-long learners working toward a common good. He also challenged them to fully embrace the use of ICT in order to equip students and co-learners to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Some readers may wonder why he said that. He said that, I believe, because we still have lectures who have not embraced the role technology is playing in the field of learning.
For those of us who have been studying the system for years we are aware that the Prof did not say anything new, but that he was bold enough to say the simple truth was what captured my attention. I have written in this column in the past that employers are expressing increasing dissatisfaction with the degree to which our graduates can access, evaluate, and communicate information; can use information technology (IT) tools effectively; can think critically; can solve problems; and can work well in teams and with people from different cultural backgrounds.
This is why a change of instructional paradigms — from passive to active (authentic) learning strategies, such as project-based learning, problem-based learning, or inquiry-based learning — is clearly needed in Nigeria today. However, changing instructional paradigms is fraught with problems no doubt. Faculty members for one are busy, many are not comfortable with using information technology (IT) tools, and most cling jealously to the traditional lecture-based instructional paradigm.
Elsewhere in the world, times have changed for tertiary education. From the de-emphasis on thinking about delivering instruction and the concurrent emphasis placed on producing learning, to using technology to expand distance education, to the recognition of the importance of sense of community strides are being made. Today, serious nations are well along the road of creating that new “schoolhouse” not constructed exclusively of “bricks and mortar”. Universities are thus moving away from a faculty-centered and lecture-based paradigm to a model where learners are the focus, where faculty members become learning environment designers, and where students are taught critical thinking skills.
In this new schoolhouse, the role of professors is to serve their students by ensuring student learning is of paramount importance. They support their students by attending to their intellectual growth and self-autonomy, and by instilling in them an awareness of important social issues, thus supporting their ability to become more productive members of society as lifelong learners working toward the common good. This need for classroom change to allow students to acquire more significant kinds of cognitive learning, particularly critical thinking skills is the driving force for the success of western and Asian societies. Recollect that in the past Indian certificates were frowned upon worldwide, including Nigeria; our certificates were held in higher esteem then. India later went to the drawing board and today their universities produced some of the best graduates in Medicine, ICT and other disciplines.
If we envision a university education as education in the conduct and strategy of inquiry, then the university becomes society’s unique site where students learn how to think, learn, produce, and evaluate knowledge, providing the basis for lifelong, independent learning. Important implications of this shift from our normal read and pass examination system, are the need for a recommitment to creating an ideal learning environment for students and employing new pedagogies and technologies, where appropriate.
In implementing change, one reality seems clear; the world has changed tremendously and is now less safe than it was years ago as civilizations clash. Universities have a critical role to play here as they deepen their knowledge of cultural studies with new paradigms to explain the growing cases of conflicts and terrorism. Western universities have for long imbibed this paradigm by equipping their graduates with tools for the real world. We face our own challenge with Boko Haram, so what are our tertiary institutions doing about it?
Pushing for a paradigm shift will no doubt be resisted as some scholars. In many cases, professors teach as they were taught and resist change, often using academic freedom as an academic crutch. Since faculty promotion and tenure, at present, are largely based on research and publication, some professors and lecturers zealously feel that they should not take away from their research or writing time to change curricula and pedagogy, for the potential rewards are not worth the time or risk to them. Consequently, many professors still use the traditional lecture as their instructional strategy of choice.
Learning is central in the process of entrepreneurial development; learning styles therefore play an important role in learning entrepreneurship at university. It is noteworthy that some universities in the country have taken steps to establish or have already established entrepreneurial development centres with the aim of bridging the lacuna between what employers want and what the system is churning out. As an advocate for a paradigm shift there is the need to stress that learning must be culturally relevant to our society so that we do not lose our identity by creating a new problem while trying to solve another.
