He has a background in Education and Communication Arts from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. During his teaching career that spanned over two decades, he successfully taught the British, Nigerian and International Baccalaureate curricula to students of diverse backgrounds and orientation. He has also worked as Education Partnerships Manager at the British Council.
Meet Mr. Akin Alamu, an author, conference speaker, training contents developer and education sector development and management specialist with multi-sectoral experience spanning school planting and management, curriculum development and evaluation, teacher engagement/development, resources development and education marketing.
Akin is currently the CEO/Head Consultant at HighRank Curriculum, an education training development and management company. Akin focuses on empowering teachers, students and schools with time-relevant skills and competencies. He is a published author of five books on education practice and skills development including Citizenship Education for Global Awareness and 21st Century Teaching: Teachers’ Manual.
He spoke with The Podium Media on a wide range of issues affecting the education sector in Nigeria.
What is your assessment of the state of education sector in Nigeria?
With warm approval of my conscience, I would rate the state of education sector in Nigeria as poor. We are yet to put in place what could meaningfully contribute to get the citizenry properly educated.
What are the problems facing education and what would be your recommendations?
There are many problems facing education in Nigeria. I would like to discuss the problems under 3 sub-headings namely, Access, Quality of delivery and Funding. A vast majority of Nigerians especially the children do not have access to schools. The UNICEF released a report that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. The out-of-school children in Nigeria are too many and no nation can develop with this kind of statistics.
The quality of teaching and learning at our schools from primary to tertiary is poor and may not equip the recipient of this education to be globally competitive.
Education in Nigeria is underfunded and there are no infrastructural facilities to support teaching and learning. The practitioners especially the teachers are poorly remunerated, and the profession cannot attract the best manpower to deliver.
All hands must be on deck including legislations around access, quality, and funding.
Akin Alamu, CEO HighRank Curriculum
Curriculum development is a core aspect of education policy. How are we faring in this regard?
The development of a nation is usually shrouded in the curriculum being taught at different levels of education. Generally, a typical curriculum has three elements—the content, method, and assessment. If any of these elements is neglected or underdeveloped, the curriculum cannot be used as a vehicle for development.
The contents of our curriculum mostly are not addressing the needs of the society. Let me give an example: my son studying an engineering course in a federal university, under a General Studies (GES) course is being taught the definition of a noun and verb. Other serious curricula in technologically advanced nations will not be wasting an undergraduate’s time by teaching him the definition of a verb. They would rather be teaching communication and presentation skills which the students will need in the world of work.
Another element of curriculum development is assessment. We must be doing more under assessment than the very narrow paper and pencil assessments. One education expert was arguing at a time, and I subscribe to his line of thought that our students in Nigeria are “over examined”. We probably spend more time writing exams internally and externally than the time we spend in teaching and learning.
The third element in curriculum development is the method of delivering the contents of the curriculum. Our methods are still very much didactic, and the teacher spends ample time “telling” the learners what they are supposed to know. Usually the learners are passive, and they hardly have the opportunity of contributing to the learning process. Creative thinkers who will innovate for technological advancement cannot be developed with this kind of teaching method.
Critics have suggested that our education system is not focused on producing self-sustaining graduates. How far is this so?
This challenge is rooted in how we educate our students. When we spoon-feed the learners too much and the only activity, he/she is doing at school is note copying, then we cannot produce self-sustaining graduates. Ask any student who studied computer science in any of our tertiary institutions and they will testify to this. The students spend all their time copying notes given by the lecturer. They hardly teach these computer science students how to do programming. Some of these students must pay private tutors who teach them the relevant skills needed in the world of work.
Teachers have come under heavy criticisms for not doing their bit in teaching and moulding students. What is your perspective on this?
I will be very quick to admit that teacher factor is one of the many problems. But we need to be able to trace the origin of this problem to the quality of the training which the teachers have received, not only when they were in tertiary institutions but right from their primary schools. It is true that you cannot give what you do not have. What if the teacher is ready to work but the training, he/she received has not prepared him/her for the challenges of the 21st Century teaching and learning?
I also think it is unfair to heap this heavy blame on the teachers. There are many other factors which can prevent a child from learning and most times teachers may not be able to help. Let me give an example here— A child whose parents do not feed with quality food or whose parents emotionally and physically abuse will struggle at school. It is about cause and effect and we cannot in good conscience blame the teacher for the problems caused by other stakeholders.
So, sometimes the teacher is overwhelmed. I sincerely empathise with the teacher because he is mostly blamed for the rot in the education system. This is not to say that the teachers are not contributing to the problems.
What should parents be doing at this time to enhance the quality of education?
The parents should be more genuinely interested in the education of their children. They should be cooperating with the government and the schools to get proper education for their children. It has been established that the children whose parents are actively involved by visiting their children’s school, providing books, quality food and asking questions to gain understanding (not arrogantly or offensively) do well at school.
Parents should also not be interested in rushing their children out of school. Maturity is important in education and an eight-year old child in JSS1 may find schooling a bit more frustrating that a ten or eleven-year old.
There is a serious concern about primary schools. In most states, nothing tangible is being achieved. What should we be doing to ensure a sure-footed foundation for our young ones?
It is a total systemic failure if a primary school leaver cannot read and write. The secondary school teacher may find it frustrating when he/she must deal with an illiterate secondary school student. I strongly advise that we all need to focus more on the foundation education which our children are receiving. The neglect in primary education is probably why all the money we are sinking in tertiary education is still not producing self-sustaining graduates who will be globally competitive.
We also need to regulate the education which the children receive before age 5 or 6 when they start primary school. Unlike before, almost all our children now go to nursery school. Most of these nursery schools are not well-run. Quite many of them do a lot of damages to the foundation education which the child is receiving. When the foundation is faulty, the whole structure will collapse. It is just a matter of time.
What is the vision of HighRank Curriculum and in what areas can professionals like you can intervene and make a difference?
Our vision at HighRank Curriculum is to make what we do more accessible to a vast majority of teachers especially the public schools’ teachers so that more children can receive time-relevant education that will make them to be globally competitive. We are going to achieve this by automating all our trainings and by partnering more with governments and not-for- profit organizations (NGOs) who are interested in quality education delivery.
