Re: ‘What education is and it is not’

The well-researched opinion article in The Guardian titled “What education is and it is not” by F. E. Ogbumi is excellent and thought-provoking as it does try to address the issue of policy formulation for Education for development in Nigeria.

We must, however, appreciate that following the rise of modern science in Europe in the 17th Century that Science and Technology activities undertaken in Europe changed the scope and complexity of industry leading to an industrial economy. Science and Technology activities were introduced in Nigeria for the first time in 1899 in furtherance of the revolution going on in Britain and Europe…

It is the British Cotton Growing Association (BCGA) led by one Mr. Moor in its search for a suitable area for cotton growing in southern Nigeria that introduced Agricultural Scientific Research at Ibadan in an area now known as Moor Plantain in 1899. Although cotton was abundantly produced in Kano areas, there were then no roads, no railways to take them to the sea port in Lagos for their export to Britain. Ibadan apparently had a climate like Kano’s which gave the impetus to the cotton growing experimental station in Ibadan.

Science and Technology education for development in Industrial nations of Europe, North America and many countries in Asia consists of the following activities:
1 Training in the various disciplines of Science and Technology namely Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Agricultural Sciences and Medical Sciences all taking place in the universities or similar academies;
2. Scientific Research in the above disciplines of Science primarily to acquire knowledge or deeper understanding on the intricacies of above stated Sciences, which may lead to discoveries and inventions and or new scientific knowledge;
3. Training in the technics (Technologies) of production and services in the economy which take place in the Polytechnics, and or Colleges of Technologies to acquire the capability and or capacity to produce and manufacture technologies.
4. Research and Development (R&D) which take place in R&D institutions, universities and or at the ground floor of industry such as Engineering design and Fabrication, Technology innovation, and industrial production and manufacturing of capital goods, consumer items and industrial materials using such primary raw material as cocoa, corn, groundnut, and solid, liquid and gaseous minerals;
5. Mass production of modern technologies and industrial goods (capital, consumer items and industrial materials) using primary raw materials (agricultural and minerals including solid, liquid and gaseous raw minerals) for this purpose in the domestic economy; and
6. Technology Innovation capacity building. That is, capacity to modify, upgrade and or improve an existing technologies to become a new technologies in the economy.

Now the question is “can the education in Science and Technology now taking place in Nigeria fit into the above definition? If not why not?
My honest answer is that it does not. This is because Nigeria is yet to build the requisite capability and or capacity to produce and manufacture globally competitive modern technologies and industrial goods. We do not produce new technologies in Nigeria through technology innovation or through domestic R&D. This observation is fully supported by a statement credited to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the then governor of CBN and now the Emir of Kano.

“We, in Nigeria (that is a country which began training and research in Science and Technology disciplines in 1899 at Moor Plantation Ibadan) produce crude petroleum oil, we have no refineries and even the refineries constructed and built for us are not functioning and we have no domestic endogenous capacity to repair or rehabilitate them, we produce gas, we don’t have gas processing plants, we produce cotton but the textiles plants (imported and installed for us) are not working and we cannot rehabilitate them.

We produce and export hides and skins but we don’t have leather and leather products industries. We have iron ore deposits we don’t produce steel including flat sheets, (that is namely sheet metal and carbon steel) (and one will like to add we all know that steel is the prime metal of all moving parts of a machine). We produce various primary agricultural commodities including tomatoes, cassava, maize, etc. but we don’t have tomato processing plants and industries for producing yeast, starch, etc. We have abundant natural minerals but we don’t have chemical industries (and one will add, to produce organic chemicals, inorganic and special chemicals such as fertilizers and explosives) etc. All of which have to be imported from industrial nations to sustain Nigeria’s manufacturing economy.

“In the absence of these industries or domestic industrial production base we cannot create jobs in the manufacturing sector of the economy, which now contributes very little to the country’s GDP, then the economy cannot grow and since we don’t have our own industrial production base, our market of over 150 million people is a market for fast industrialising and fast growing nations such as China, India and South Korea and the highly industrialised nations of Europe, North America and Japan.

“Now China’s industrial products are cheaper in this country and other African countries than the industrial goods of Europe and America and that is why America is today blackmailing and asking China not to devalue its currency, the Yuan, so that American industrial products can compete favourably in African countries, the main battle ground or markets for world industrial goods and services.”

Lord Fredrick Lugard, the first governor-general of Nigeria (1914-1918), in his book titled The Dual Mandate of Europe in Tropical Africa 4th Edition 1929, provided the answers on why Science and Technology activities undertaken in Nigeria could not build in Nigeria a domestic capability. “The tropics are a heritage of mankind, the exploitation of its vast primary raw materials cannot be denied to the Europeans who need them for their industrial classes (industrialisation of Europe). Let it be admitted that at the outset that European brains, capital and energy have not been and never will be expended in developing the resources of Africa from motives of pure philanthropy, Europe is in Africa for the mutual benefit of her own industrial classes and the native races of Africa, the source of some primary raw materials needed for the industrialisation of Europe.

“The Colonies will take our (European produced) modern technologies and industrial manufactured goods (capital, consumer items and industrial materials) and we (Europe) shall get their (Africa) raw materials (agricultural commodities, solid, liquid and gaseous minerals) in return. They (the Africa native people) will get from us (Europe), industrial goods including equipment, machines, transport vehicles, modern medicines, movies, schools and professionals, etc. required to exploit their (Africa) primary raw resources (agricultural and minerals) to the mutual benefit of Europe and the African natives.’’

In this Policy no modern technologies and no globally competitive industrial goods will be permitted in British Colonies in Africa. Certainly this set the stage for Nigeria’s near total dependence on imported modern technologies and industrial goods inputs in order to sustain her domestic economy.

This Policy was sustained throughout the British Colonial Rule and inexplicably since the end of Colonial Rule in 1960. It is this policy that led to no Polytechnics, no Colleges of Technology no Technical Colleges for skilled technologists and technicians training required for industrial goods production, no R&D Institutions for converting the output of scientific research, inventions and discoveries into modern technologies and industrial goods.

What Nigeria, therefore, should do is to jettison Lugard’s policy on education that is certainly not appropriate for S&T activities for development in Nigeria and to embrace a more appropriate policy for S&T activities that can transform or leapfrog Nigeria into a domestic endogenous capability and or capacity for modern technologies and globally competitive industrial goods.
Oragwu is a Fellow of Science Association of Nigeria (FSAN),