Claretian Institute of Philosophy
University of Port Harcourt
Pursuing
Excellence in Education inspite of the current Educational situation in
Nigeria.
Convocation
Lecture
Delivered
by
Vincent
E. Asor, PhD
Shell
Nigeria.
On
the occasion of the
9th
Convocation Ceremonies
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Table
of contents
2.0
Educational
Development of the person
3.0
Education and
its’ place in National development.
4.0
Pursuing
Excellence in Education
Before
we begin this lecture which has a very familiar content, I will like us all to
make a solemn rethink and cast our minds to memory lane on the educational
interestedness in our times and marry it to the current educational problems of
the times today in Nigeria. In our times, these problems may be sweet suckling
like positive policies from government which helped steadied the schools and
went without fear, schooled without fear and graduated without fear. In the
today as we think ahead, it may be something of disinterest… something like an
Ilich cancer that is nearing incurability. This rethink is essential because, it
will afford us the opportunity to know why private individuals have taken over
education and they are pursuing it with so much vigour and excellence.
When
Nnamdi Azikiwe was writing the foreword to Nick Obi’s book, ‘Our legacy’,
he said: “It is there, in the heart of Rome, one of
the glories of that ancient city – the enormous and rather imposing rotund
structure known as the ‘Amphitheatre Flavius’. People call it Colosseum (=
Gigantic). Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus (Roman Emperor: A.D.
60-79) it was who built it. Today, after nearly 2000 years, the edifice
still stands superb for the amazement and admiration of tourists. The secret of
longevity? Quite simple: its foundation – twenty-two feet deep! Unfortunately,
there is abroad, some lousy and misleading information that foundations have
outlived their usefulness, that they are, infact, a waste of money, and that the
expense on them should be cut in favour of comfort and appearance. No wonder,
many a building these days do exactly what they are erected to do: cave in,
collapse and fall apart; in some cases even before the contractors pick up their
last pay cheque! Whenever this happens (and it is no laughing matter), the
Architect blames the Engineer who blames the Contractor who blames the Masons
who blames the …
This
is what has happened to our Educational system today. We wanted to erect
structures that will stand… structures that could be improved upon to give us
the best… but someone came from somewhere and put a sharp knife onto the
string that was attempting to tie it and the system started crumbling. In that
circumstance, those who ‘Never say die’ took it upon themselves and said,
‘we must give ourselves and the generations to come, the best of education’
despite the problems in the sector.
Anyway,
the American Heritage Dictionary classifies Education as a noun and goes on to
propose the following definitions:
1.
The act or process of educating or
being educated.
2.
The knowledge or skill obtained or
developed by a learning process.
3.
A program of instruction of a
specified kind or level: driver education; a college education.
4.
The field of study that is
concerned with the pedagogy of teaching and learning.
5.
An instructive or enlightening
experience: Her work in the inner city was a real education
The
propositions above present their own appeals no matter our viewpoint. But we can
summarise the definitions to make Education mean an act, a process or the art of
imparting knowledge and skill. As a learning process therefore, it can take
place in schools or school-like environments (formal education) or in the
world at large. In this process, the values and accumulated knowledge of a
society are transmitted. In olden cultures, there was little or no formal
education as children learn from their environment and activities, and the
adults around them act as teachers. In more complex societies however, where
there is more knowledge to be passed on, a more selective and efficient means of
transmission--the school and teacher--becomes necessary. This is the predominant
form of Education in today’s world with contents, duration and who qualifies
to receive it, even though this varies from culture to culture and age to age,
as has the philosophy of education.
It
will be a melancholy experience for a professional educator to find himself
writing about education. The function of an educator in my belief, is to do
something, to teach people, to add to education and not to talk about education
and its problems. So, discussing Education either primitively or as a discipline
can never be exhausted. The reasons can be adduced from our initial definition
of Education.
Education
can be formal or informal. In formal education, there is a known and acceptable
algorithm, a procedure which is known to everybody engaged in the process. This
algorithm is governed by rules. There are written down methods of disseminating
information from one hand to another. Despite wastage in the system, good
knowledge is still retained and imparted from one generation to another. In
informal education, the transmission process is obscure and there is a sharp
difference in acquired knowledge through the process.
Historically,
education has an important role to play in the advancement of the person and in
promoting the principles of social democracy through its several ways. It is the
only thing that makes the person open to new ideas. However, there is now a
serious challenge to the ability of education living up to this critical role
and hence the choice of the topic for our Convocation lecture.
We
will end this section by concluding that, ‘Education is the superset of all
sets’. Let the Mathematicians worry themselves about this proposition.
Aristotle,
a great philosopher, said that education is an ornament in prosperity and
a refuge in adversity. He also said that education is the best viaticum
of old age. In the educational development of the person, J. Locke sees the
individual as a blank slate onto which knowledge can be written and J. Rousseau
sees the innate human state as desirable in itself and therefore to be tampered
with as little as possible, a view often taken in alternative education. We will
build this section of our discussions on the thoughts of these great men.
In
the philosophy of education, application of philosophical methods to problems
and issues in education, e.g. what constitutes learning and whether virtue can
be taught, etc., some philosophers would say that educational development of the
person should end with the attempt to clarify and justify educational statements
and arguments, but many go beyond analysis to concern themselves with
establishing value judgments and substantive goals for education.
Let
me digress a little and take two quotations from Shakespeare’s books. In his
work, ‘As you like it’, Act 1, Scene 1, line 22, he said:
“I
will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to
give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding
from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such exercises as may
become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by
testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.
And
in line 2, he said
“As
I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a
thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing, to breed
me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school,
and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at
home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you
that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of
an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their
feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but
I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on
his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me, his countenance seems
to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother,
and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it,
Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me,
begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet
I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
We
have chosen these quotations to enable us pursue something interesting: Does
the person require any educational development, be it formal or informal?
The answer is in the affirmative… a very strong yes.
In
my school, which I will like to impart today to my listeners, all of creation
exists in a state. The created remains in that state until something happens.
That thing that happens is one of the subsets of education. The several seconds
old baby is taught to suckle until satisfied. The mother then sings him a song
(lullaby) and the child goes to sleep. The learning process is started and
progresses until the child attains the small chalkboard (very olden) age, the
pencil/paper age, the pen/paper age, etc. This is educational development and if
it progresses uninterrupted, the person uses its benefits to gain a place in
society. Essentially, when one suffers education, there is a dislocation of
natural equilibrium to the right. The movement to the left is countably finite
and will therefore not assist us in this affirmative yes. This means that in her
rightful place, the person requires educational development. Excellence at this
point is not yet a watchword except in the negative x-direction or negative
y-direction movement. Even so, in these cases, there are plenty of benefits to
society.
In
the Northern Natal culture, the most common greeting equivalent to ‘hello’
in English is ‘sawu bona’, which literally means, ‘I see you’.
A fellow tribesman responds to this greeting by saying ‘sikona’,
which means, ‘I am here’. The order of this greeting is important, i.e.
until you see me, I do not exist. It is as if, when you see me, you bring me
into existence. This is the type of education I will like us to explore in this
lecture, which is a part of of the spirit of ‘ubuntu’, a frame of
mind prevalent among the native people of Natal. The word ‘ubuntu’
stems from the folk saying ‘umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu’ which
literally translates from the Zulu as ‘A person is a person because of other
people’ (Senge et al, 1994). Growing up with this type of perspective
leaves our identity based upon the fact that we are seen – that the people
around us respect and acknowledge us as persons. This is achieved through
education – excellence in education.
Winners
are judged by sustained success and one way of achieving sustained success is by
suffering education in an acceptable and conducive environment. Sustained
success is adding value and you cannot add value at dormant state. Successful
leaders must develop other leaders by sharing their teachable points of view. We
must understand that Schools don’t do things, rather, people do. The person
must be grown, and not just grown, but in a way that he/she can add value. This
is why education is pursued in places that have something to show for it. And
despite the harsh realities of our times, coupled with the economic glut, people
still pursue excellence in education.
This
takes us to the next section of our talk…
We
rightly can now claim that the importance of education cannot be over-emphasised
primarily because of the change in image of the educated.
In
this section of our discussion, we will develop a few disciplines that will help
us share in the place of education as a weapon for national development. We will
need to do this because, at its essence, every nation is a product of how its
citizenry think and interact. The emphasis is on the two words – thinking and
interacting, and that is why there is a shift from outward to inward and hence
the pursuit for excellence in education.
The
primary leverage for educational effort is not necessarily a function of
policies and budgets but in ourselves, so that, creating desired results is not
necessarily also a sign of education. For instance, winning a lottery is an
achievement but that does not mean you have expanded your capacity to win future
lotteries.
In
looking inward, the primary step is becoming aware of, and studying, the tacit
truths that we take for granted, and the aspirations and expectations that
govern what we choose from life. Sooner than later, there will be a complete
shift of students from the Federal Institutions to privately owned ones. It is
already almost here.
On
interaction, what we mean here is redesigning not just the formal structures of
education, but the hard-to-see patterns of interaction between people and
processes.
In
attempting to place education properly in the scheme of things, let us now
develop and discuss the disciplines we talked about earlier, but very briefly.
These are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Systems Thinking, Shared Vision and
Team Learning (Senge et al, 1994). In Personal Mastery, the emphasis is
learning to expand our personal capacity to create the results we most desire,
and creating an environment which encourages all its members to develop
themselves towards the goals and purposes they choose. This is done in a
structured manner in an organisational set-up where excellence is pursued
irrespective of setbacks and harsh conditions. The discipline of Mental Models
is about improving our internal pictures of the world, and seeing how they shape
our actions and decisions. This is the foundation for growth which properly
places education at the peak of defining national development. Mental model is
the mother of shared vision. This is where a sense of commitment is built in a
group by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the
principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there. The discipline
of team learning is about transformation – transforming our thinking skills
and all of that, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and
ability greater than the sum of individual members’ talents. Systems Thinking
is a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the
forces and interrelationships that shape the behaviour of systems. It is the
discipline that helps us see how to change systems more effectively, and to act
more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world.
I
am taking you through all of this so that you may understand that, to practice a
discipline is to be a lifelong learner on a never-ending development path. This
is the reason why excellence in education is being pursued no matter what odds
are associated with it. It goes on then to define the place of education in
National development.
Let
us now summarise the need for pursuing excellence in education inspite of the
harsh realities around us. This is the next section of our lecture.
Said
Aristotle, Excellence is not an act, but a habit. The history of Excellence
in Education began in January, 1963, when Meyer Weinberg and the Teachers
for Integrated Schools of Chicago, Illinois, started Integrated Education
in order to promote and chronicle school integration in the United States. This
shows that the disconnect between education and excellence in it has been well
studied and is known, i.e. people have envisioned the need for excellence long
ago.
Back home, the establishment of private institutions despite the huge
number of federal universities is a clear testimony of this fact. This is now in
the society and one of the reasons why society accepts the policies of tenure
and academic freedom is because it has been persuaded that the public will
benefit in the long run if professors are insulated from pressures that could
compromise their impartial search for knowledge (Carson, 1999). This is not to
say however, that, privatisation and commercialisation is necessarily the best
form of pursuing excellence in education, as this can damage the historic
mission of the university and, in the process, impede its capacity to support
the principles of social democracy. This is a different discussion altogether.
Why
are we pursuing excellence in education?
“What!
would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son, of Burton-heath;
by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and
now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of
Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for
sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom”. These are the
exact words contained in Shakespeare’s book, The Taming of the Shrew,
Induction, Scene II, Line 11.
So
Chris through traditional learning became a pedlar and by institutionalised
learning became a card maker, etc. This is the point I am trying to make.
No
one wants to go to school and spend 7 years instead of 4. No one wants to have
his/her curriculum interrupted. Everyone wants it as at and when due. So, we
pursue excellence in education because we:
·
Feel we are doing something that matters
·
Feel like growing and enhancing our capacity to create
·
Become more intelligent
·
Expand our knowledge base excellently
·
Expand our vision
·
Meet people of like minds and understanding and so
feel free to try new things, experiments, take risks and openly assess the
results.
·
Feel we will better placed in a society that has
regard for excellence
·
Make better society
·
Acquire power
Shortly
before we round up, I will like to take a swipe at the last one… acquiring
power. You see, there are altogether for the purpose of this lecture, seven
types of power namely: coercive, connection, expert, information, legitimate,
referent and reward power (Markham, 1987).
Coercive power is based on fear since the owner
of such power is seen as inducing compliance because failure to comply will lead
to punishment. Don’t possess it. Connection
power is based on the
individual’s connection with influential or important persons. If you have
this power, you will induce compliance from others because they aim at gaining
the favour or avoiding the disfavour of the powerful connection. It is
sufficient but not necessary. Expert power
is based on one’s possession of expertise, skill and knowledge, which, through
respect influences others. This is what excellent education gives us. We desire
it. Information power is that based
on the person’s possession of or access to information that is perceived as
valuable to others. This power base influences others because they need this
information. It is good to be in on things always and that is why we keep
learning and seek the best form of education. Legitimate
power is based on positions held by us and so is a function of
our placement anywhere we find ourselves. It must be used wisely. It is not
static. Referent power is the one
based on personal traits. People will admire you and like you because of
personality. This power is via tradition and transformation which are elements
of excellent education. Finally, Reward power
is that based on our ability to provide rewards for other people. Those people
pursuing excellence in education, either by providing the environment or seeking
it must be rewarded.
Like
Animalu, 2001, said, ‘the terrorists are responsible for the stultifying
educational policies which, coupled with our backwardness in Science and
technology, makes the deterioration of the educational system inevitable. Good
educational policies would add value to the human capital; and proper emphasis
on science and technology would improve the discipline and efficiency of the
human capital as well as add value to the means of production. Bad educational
policies, such as lack of autonomy, poor funding, lack of facilities, lack of
maintenance culture, quota system, etc. are responsible for the increasing
students unrest and teachers strike action.
This
is why the conclusion of this lecture is important.
A well known speaker started
off a seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, who
would like this $20 bill? Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to
give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to
crumple the dollar bill up. He asked, "who still wants it?" Still the
hands were up in the air.
"Well," he replied,
"what if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to
grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, we have all
learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still
wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many
times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the
decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.
Sometimes
we might feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or
what will happen, you will never lose your value: dirty or clean, crumpled or
finely creased, you are still priceless to those who love you.
The worth of our lives comes
not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE. This is why the pursuit for
excellence in education is ever increasing. We need it. We will all benefit. We
are praying and hoping that someday, somewhere, somebody will realize it in
government and things will never be the same again.
Thank
you.
American
Heritage Dictionary, Heinmann press, 1098pp.
Animalu, A. O. E. (2001):
A memoir on Physics and Solar Energy Research, Snaap Press Limited, Enugu,
115pp.
Carson,
A.S. (2000): ‘Social Democracy and the evolving role of the university’, CCS
International Conference, Inst. of Education, University of London.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hicks, R. D. (1925): Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, tr.
Markham,
C. (1997): Practical Consulting, The Institute of Chartered Accountants in
England and Wales, 258pp.
Obi,
N (1998): Our Legacy, Jojab Ventures, 521pp.
Shakespeare
W. (1914): Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Oxford edition.
Senge,
A., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Smith, B. (1994): The fifth discipline,
Doubleday Publishing, 593pp.