Provost, Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, Prof. Kamoru Olayiwola Usman, has called for a holistic review of Nigeria’s academic curriculum in line with current realities for the country to attain development.
Usman, a Professor of Mathematics and National President of Mathematical Association of Nigeria (MAN), in an interview with The Guardian, said the current curriculum is outdated and could hardly meet industry needs.
The alumnus of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, kuru, Jos, said: ‘‘Our education is close to nothing. What they taught you and I during our primary school days is what they are still teaching in this computer age. Our curricula have remained moribund.
“ So, we need to overhaul our curricula entirely. But, before we do that, we need to retrain our teachers because a teacher can only teach what he or she knows. They don’t make much out of the so-called retraining because they are used to a particular pattern of life and that is why most of the training sponsored by the government is of no consequence on the performance of the teachers.
“So, if I happen to be the Minister of Education, I will probably create a new curriculum, train teachers on how to use the new curriculum before implementation.
For instance, in our primary schools, there is no more Integrated Science, but teacher training colleges are still training teachers on how to teach the subject. Colleges of Education are meant to train teachers for basic education levels. At the basic level, you don’t have Integrated Science and Music, but we are still training teachers. You can see contradictions in our system.”
Speaking of learners with special needs, the Provost explained that special education is important, pointing out that some of the students in this category are highly talented.
He said: ‘’If we go by our constitution, education is mandatory for every child irrespective of religion, culture and any form of disability. So, the group that belongs to the special needs group also needs education. Some of these children are more intelligent than able people.
‘’But, it is unfortunate that we pay less attention to this group of people, because it takes more money to train somebody with a disability than training the able person.
However, when you talk of Special Education, it goes beyond the area of disability. We have the people that are highly talented – the extremely brilliant set of learners (gifted and talented) also belong to the area of Special Needs Education, the albinos and some with other forms of disabilities need special attention too. Hence, Special Education is highly important’’.
While stressing the need for Nigerians to embrace mathematics, Olayiwola said: “To test the reasoning ability or intelligence of man, Mathematics is used. That’s why in most examinations that have to do with selection or placement, it is either Mathematics or English Language- English is to test your fluency in language, while Mathematics is to test how reasonable you’ll be.”
