Education in Nigeria
Dec 7th, 2011 by admin
Prof. Grace Alele Williams, first female vice chancellor in Nigeria and sub-saharan Africa baring her mind on education in Nigeria.
I was born in Warri, now in Delta state. I was a rather sickly child and did not get to school until I was almost seven in 1939. I enjoyed learning and I moved on quickly in class, though we did not have any Science teachers at my level so we could not do any science courses. I finished my primary school in Warri, and then attended secondary school in Queens College, Lagos and went to university college Ibadan. In those days going from one school to a higher institution depended on two things, one if your parents could afford it but quite important for the government schools if you could get there on scholarship because many parents could not afford it and Queens College was the only girls’ school. When I left Ibadan with an honor’s degree in mathematics, I taught at Ede for three years. Then I got a job at Vermont in the United States as a graduate assistant in mathematics. I taught for three years and for two years got my masters in education from there I was lucky I got a fellowship at the University of Chicago where I went in the summer of 1959 to start a course in comparative education but it was necessary to work part time in some colleges to put body and soul together. The University of Chicago was a big boost to me and it afforded me an opportunity to do a doctorate and then I carried out a research in the development of education in the late fifties.
Most important I aligned myself with the changes in the curriculum of mathematics in the United States. In the late fifties before I came back to Nigeria I carried out a research on methods of improving the teaching of mathematics. I eventually carried out the same experiment in Lagos. At the same time I worked with the African mathematics programme, Machechusts where every summer from 1963 on we wrote textbooks in mathematics and tried them out in schools.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA TODAY?
In 1969, we went into deep discussions on the state of schools in Nigeria. Some of us who had been abroad and had experienced another system of education felt that many of us where privileged to have had parents who could pay for our school fees and had gone to secondary school because then the secondary schools were geared only for those who would get a degree and go on to white collar jobs in future. At about that time, the issue that secondary and primary education should be free to many people if possible began to take root, so we started working on a policy of education for Nigeria. It took some time but the ministry of education was keen on building up a philosophy of education for Nigeria and what came out of it was that we must have primary education that was useful for everybody at the primary school level.
We must remember as much as that was possible, at least 40% of the children should go into secondary school. In some areas in the western region of course it was more. but we now saw the curriculum as providing not just for the grammar school type as we had copied in the colonial days but the comprehensive type of education as in the United States and that was what we recommended, that we should have two layers of school, what you might call a junior school, the first three years of education at the secondary level where there was options especially in practical work to do secretarial work, to do home economics, to do carpentry but above all to make sure we that we could train artisans and we could learn to be artisans, all of us and then after that you could have those who would go into technical education, those who could go into more education, that would lead one into the university but many people who could have a general education and could perhaps not go on into higher education immediately but there would be room in future to go on to higher education but many of us wanted to go into teaching but the changes that where taking place in Nigeria at the time did not allow many of the changes that we had envisaged to take place.
For instance our technical section was very weak , we did not build technical schools and our science areas were not so bad so most people felt it was necessary to have every person who had school certificate to have five, six areas which must constitute English, mathematics and a Nigerian language. After that you could have three other areas that would enable you go into any of the professions, In our grammar schools then we had work in physics, chemistry and biology but we did not have areas where people could go into technical work, into carpentry etc. that was directed mainly at practical education and physical education that would make sure that we could apply our hands as well as learn our theories. It became a bit of a letdown because even though many countries helped us we did not emphasize sufficiently teacher education in these areas. Even with one good example we had in the late fifties and sixties, a comprehensive school set up by Ford foundation at Aiyetoro in Ogun state, we did not build up on this and so it has become a recurring decimal.
We have people who are ready to go to school but we do not have teachers’ sufficiently in science and technology and it has bothered us all along. So, this is a major problem; we have in our educational system. Though, many of our teachers are still very good, however when you consider that we are all going to the same market, given the position of our teaching and perhaps our inability to comprehend that it was necessary to review the position of the teacher’, salary wise and benefits wise etc. we lost a lot of people.
For instance, when I was finishing school it was a pride and joy to go into teaching, the difference between what you got in the teaching profession and what was outside was not so great but ten years after it was quite a bit and in addition we had not built our polythenics as much as we should have done. So it was not a question that our teachers were not good, it was a question that the people going into education, we could not get the cream of the lot because there were other more useful , more newer areas, more challenges outside of education, very soon the medical profession was beginning to feel the heat.
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION RECENTLY SAID OVER TEN MILLION CHILDREN ARE NOT IN SCHOOL, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE?
Several, they are not in school because their parents are not wealthy enough to send them to school. They work with their parents at home, so the parents do not feel the need to send them to school. Second, if you say you have a free and compulsory education then you must have an arm that actually makes it compulsory. We cannot afford that arm we need more people to actually teach and we have not got enough of them. Then of course there has been a lot of discussion as to the disparity between those who have gone into some industries and have become quite wealthy as opposed to people who have not done so and the disparity is getting greater. Again, we have a lot of private schools, very well set up where if you cannot get your children admitted into the unity schools then you can get your children into these schools and this has been a major problem in our education. Well I should not say a major problem; it is a way that is open for people who can afford it to go into private education, private schools. However I have not done the research, I cannot afford to do it, although I would like to do it, there is a feeling that that a large number of the private schools are not as good as they tend to suggest and we ought to do something about ensuring that the standards are upheld in these schools. Whatever it is you can see that even with the government schools expanding and the private schools burgeoning with private initiative helping in various government schools, the schools show a large number of pupils who cannot get the basic five subjects, get five credits in five subjects that is one step towards getting into a good tertiary institution
AS THE FIRST FEMALE VICE CHANCELLOR NOT ONLY IN NIGERIA BUT IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA WHAT WAS IT LIKE?
Mixed, very challenging to get the position and right from the start I had this feeling that I had to show that women could occupy positions where responsibly you take decisions that are good for everybody and that in a military regime of course, it is a different thing where you get a situation where there are strikes in your university everyday but I had quite many years in Nigeria as a university teacher before I got the position, twenty years in Lagos, two years in Ibadan, ten of that I had been director, institute of education where I had managed a substantial unit that was interested in working with the university and getting a good douse of relationship with the teachers colleges.
Therefore, at the University of Benin, I saw a bigger base, diversities of teachers, diversities of subjects in various areas and the university had quite a number of faculties. We had medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, social sciences, the arts, the humanities, creative arts etc. At the same time we had other challenges like the number of students who could be admitted into the university every year because we had no space. There were opportunities for the university at that time to start part time courses and we took advantage of that quite well. There were two major areas I concentrated in, in terms of part time courses; one was part time in business administration where we had classes set up Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Young men and women with first degrees in any area working in various industrial sectors could come in and work towards a master’s degree in business administration. To start with we had to fund it ourselves and we managed to do that.
There was another challenge, one I had always had in mind that young men were needed who had sometimes not a first degree in law and with most of the changes coming in after the colonial period, you needed people who understood the law, understood the law that pertained to business , that pertained to financial institutions, pertained to growth and if you needed such people faculty of law producing 30 lawyers a year, even 60 lawyers was not enough so the other area I went into was part time studies in first degree law and that was most welcome
TELL US ABOUT EDUCATION IN RELATION TO THE GIRL CHILD IN NIGERIA?
At the University of Benin if we could get 20-30% of the students in the universities as girls it would be a move forward and at one time given the part time courses, the diploma courses in education, post graduate diploma courses also in education we came near to it. I think we were approaching a place where we had as many as 30% of the students as females, girls in the university. I don’t think this was good enough because if you look at the distribution you would find girls where mainly in the arts and in the humanities. We were increasing the number in law but we were not getting the same increment in the sciences and medicine but even in medicine we were making progress.
Later on, there were many more girls coming into medicine, parents were bringing their daughters hoping they would pass and they were passing, they were doing well in their courses so this was a cause of satisfaction to me. It was a cause of satisfaction because you know when you look at the hindrances that make it not possible for the girl child you find quite a number socially we have hindrances, politically we have hindrances, religious wise we have hindrances but mostly economically we have hindrances. The girl child is the best helper in the house and where the mother is a trader she is going to be the stay for her mother to make more money and if she is off to school then there is an economic problem. Many women seeing living examples of a university vice chancellor as a woman, university women lecturers, would now make the sacrifice. If this is the one thing I have to do, I would do it, my daughter will go to school and I will make sure she goes to the university and this was a rather difficult time for Nigeria, It was the era of SAP (structural adjustment programme) with all this, we did make progress.
Though, I can’t say this without coming back to the fact that all over Africa, women were beginning to feel that the question of girl child education was not being properly tackled and in 1992 the year I finally left the university, the African ministers of education were meeting with their male counterparts in mash ester in the United Kingdom, at the meeting they listened to the men talking about girl education, education generally and they felt that the men did not understand the problems of the girl child so they came out and decided, five of them, none from Nigeria and said No! We have to meet and see what we can do about the girl child and so they set up an organization known as the forum for African women educationalists. Starting with five ministers, pretty soon that same year joined by two female vice chancellors from Africa, Prof. Makubu from Swaziland and myself.
We started in earnest, pushing the organization forward, each of us had a task to go back to our countries and build up. In Nigeria, a large country with a large population we introduced it, particularly where women were interested, something would be done. Quite often too, it meant that in parts of Nigeria we had 80% girls in schools, in other parts of Nigeria we didn’t have. It was slow but steady and the organization helped us. We had enormous help from the United Nations; we built up the forum for African women Educationalists. This we also did at the university of Benin and many more girls where in schools and today you can still see that surfacing and it is going more and more into the northern parts of our country, where particular example is being paid to the girl child because the disabilities and the challenges she has in going to school are a lot more complex than the challenges the boy child has. Many of our families accept that the boy must go to school but it is not quite the same as the girl because they see the future of the girl that by 15 she should be married, luckily we are not doing that in Nigeria
HAVING BEING INVOLVED WITH SO MANY PROJECTS, HOW DID IT REALLY COME TOGETHER FOR YOU?
Well, first and foremost my mother did not give me a second place in the family because I was a woman. She got my brothers into schools and got me into schools. Another thing was the female influences from the girls’ government school I attended. That was especially useful because in this girl’s school you saw girls from different parts of Nigeria in school. We did not speak what was referred to then as the indigenous languages, you came to school and everyone spoke English except in your lessons were you were learning Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa. The language of exchange was English and that was to put us all on the same level. I think that was good and we had some teachers that were good. Like I said the policy in education then was female teachers in female schools.
WHO WERE YOUR INFLUENCES BACK THEN?
There were some Nigerians who had a lot of influences on me, just looking at them and knowing what they had achieved was very important to me My mother took me to lady Ademola, she was not lady Ademola then, she was Mrs. Ademola inWarri when I was a little girl but when I came to Lagos I met her as lady Ademola, Mrs. jibowu, Mrs.Doherthy and women of her type taught music, mathematics and religious studies and they were exemplary. They worked hard they were all married. The English teachers were very good, they upheld discipline and somehow you felt that being in school you didn’t but emulate these characteristics of discipline, hard work, fairplay using your time well, distributing your time between sports and learning and hoping and achieving and looking forward to doing more things. Then we had Mrs. Hobson, who was principal of my school and Dr. Whitiker, also principal of Queens College when I was in form two. They were both women of high quality characterized by smiles and hard work. You could see direction in what they did; you could see they wanted to increase the population of the schools. There were constraints but they must have worked hard to ensure the constraints were eased by the colonial government. So in my time at Queens College, a small school but by the time I left it was quite a large school. Lady Abayomi was an example too; she had a boarding house where people from other parts of Nigeria could stay.
WHEN YOU LEFT SCHOOL WHAT FOLLOWED?
By the time I came back to Queens College following the mode of administration at the time we had regional governments so we had queens school in every regional area. Queens in the North, West, East, and one in Lagos. They existed before the unity schools and they still are the same sex schools today. Those in authority, felt that especially after the World War 2 that something had to be done for the girls in Nigeria because people were talking about independence as such they would need partners, if they needed partners this was a ready pool to choose partners.
HAVING BEEN INVOLVED IN DIFFERENT PROJECTS OVER THE YEARS WHAT HAS GIVEN YOU THE MOST FULFILMENT?
It is rather difficult to say , in the sixties I was head over heels in love with modern mathematics and I thought every teacher must also provide spare time for us to have at least one workshop(seminar) lasting two weeks every three months so that the teachers would be well involved in this. With the African mathematics programme that I told you about it was easy for me because it dovetailed into my work, I could write and this was a great benefit to the community. It also was of great benefit to me because that was how I got my professorship. I thought this was the end of the world. Then a little later I became director of the institute of education, university of Lagos, and I said to myself am I not being selfish we have to spread this, science is badly taught and at that time in 1988, I think when we first thought of the first organization for women in science. This was important because we knew we had to do something for women in science. At the same time we did not have women in science to help us but there were other areas that where important, for instance early childhood education, one thing was happening , the young men who went through these classes got the basic ideas in mathematics and improved their way of teaching mathematics and left. They improved themselves and we lost them to education. However the older women were not lost, but the older women wanted to retire to something. I thought I was making progress. What I am trying to say is, each phase has had a particular excitement for me. This was a boost to teacher education at the same time Lagos for instance was upgrading it teachers training colleges. What was Bendel state then was starting teachers colleges, I happened to have being the chairman of council for one of the colleges and later on for all of the leaders there. So teacher education was most important to me.
There was another area again concerning women, in the civil service, as a typist when you get to a particular level you can’t go any further, level seven I think it used to be and only few people get there except you are a graduate so to have women who learnt to use the computers, you could not choose them all without putting the men. Again, we put the young men and women to learn to use the computers. If you had a group of say ten of which four were women and six were young men. The six young men would disappear within three months, the banks took them from us but the women would continue, so something to be said for training the middle aged woman who has children of secondary school level and many of them were not ashamed, they braced themselves up and went to the university and got a first degree, went into computers, they were a different breed altogether. This was a step forward and as far as I could see, it was the height of my career.
WHAT KIND OF BOOKS DO YOU READ?
THE books that talk about character, the books we read in school, 19th century novels, Georgetta hayett, I still read those books. Today, I read anything I find my daughters reading but I can’t remember their names. I also try some of the modern author’s men and women it does not matter.
WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?
Oh! I don’t have very much, well, I don’t know if can call this a hobby but having worked with NGO’S in the spread of mathematics and the spread of better treatment in early childhood education, changing the policy there and so forth. At the moment we have a project we refer to as city prompt academy, a few of us old women are involved, all teachers, former teachers and administrators. There are lots of poor children in school who cannot have very much to do after school as far as learning is concerned so we started this two hours of working, getting some teachers to work with them and the whole idea is to do a bit more mathematics with communication, reading spelling and writing English and we have done this now since 2007.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED FOR?
I like to be remembered for the work I have done in mathematics I have written books. I still can teach if I am called at a moment’s notice, Pre University teaching. I only taught at the university up to the second year because my work was in the teaching of mathematics than in pure mathematics. It is a bit hard to say because each time I have worked with girls and with women I have found them exciting I have found them ready to go the extra mile and it is always a great pleasure for me when more women are breaking the glass ceiling because as you learn more, you may not remember the bits and pieces of mathematics you learned but when you have built up your character, you have a clear understanding of what can be done and what should not be done and that builds up your character . If you face any other challenges you know how to go about it. Once you can do that for any other human being I think you should be extra grateful to God that you have had such an opportunity.
LOOKING BACK, DO YOU HAVE REGRETS?
NO, NO, NO, I lost my husband almost two years ago. We were a bit separated before he died, separated about twenty years or so before he died, but we were good friends. The children are doing well. God has been faithful. I have ten grandchildren.