Can there be a meeting point between these two perspectives?:
'
The purpose of giving Western Education to us, therefore, is to colonise us economically and mentally. In practice Western education converts us to trained dogs that always swerve tail in readiness to obey any command from our Western World masters no matter how dangerous the command is to our wellbeing..'
Kadiri
' Europeans, with individual and disparate skills and expertise in myriads of fields, have learnt to come together, to build structures and infrastructure for which we come to admire them. Thus, when we look at an A-380 airplane, or an I-Phone, we marvel at the engineering skills that brought these into existence. These are marvelous inventions indeed!'
Kayode
The technology enthusiast, Kayode, is arguing that-
'I could imagine a Nigerian graduate from a Nigerian university being asked to go run a petroleum company or even manufacture a car. He does not have the qualification AND he does not exist within an economic system that would make gaining the experience possible. There is simply no technologically constructed economic system yet.
Now, Is that the reason why he cannot manufacture even a pin? Sadly, that is the reason. The technology involved in manufacturing a pin is not much far removed from that involved in manufacturing a large airliner.'
Kayode makes this moving point-
'
The process in achieving a technologically oriented economy lies not in castigating our graduates. While teaching in a Nigerian technological university, I was able to empathize with many of our students and their lecturers. While these people do not lack in intelligence, they are definitely not equipped to become masters of industry. I also know that this is not just a case of importing the most modern equipment to teach the students. The simple fact is that there is no support system to make things happen yet.'
Kayode, demonstrating a technocratic mentality, has presented an opinion as to why a person educated in the Nigerian system is not likely to grasp the principles of running modern technological systems, particularly in engineering.
Kadiri , on the other hand, focuses is on dismissing Western education in Nigeria bcs Nigerians have proven unable to develop adequately its possibilities so as to provide basic amenities, depicting this education as structurally impaired, designed to make the Nigerian a slave of the creators of that educational system.
Can this be true? Is Western education in Nigeria a structurally incapacitating system, different in a fundamental way from the experience of the same system in the West?
Can this be true in the arts, where Nigerians educated and working in Nigeria have been able to build a global influence?
Is such achievement often an expression of a degree of education as an academic migrant in the West, experiencing that system in its undiluted, unsabotaged form?
How relevant are these qs for the sciences?
Is the challenge faced inherent in the character of Western education in Nigeria, the context in which it is conducted or both?
toyin
On 18 January 2018 at 06:29, Kayode J. Fakinlede <jfakinlede@gmail.com> wrote:
Mr. Kadiri,
I have chosen to engage in this give and take because of my genuine belief that you, like myself are truly concerned about the sorry state of many of the institutions, particularly the technological sector, in our country, and that we want to find ways for improvement. We may arrive at different conclusions as to why things are the way they are, but our love of country is not in doubt.
I also always like to take any opportunity I have to share my own life experiences with the hope that someone may see some sense in it and probably put it to use. And this experience covers those that I gained in the industrial sector, both at home and in the USA; and in the academic sector, both in Nigeria and overseas.
I choose to revisit some of the points I raised in my previous two articles with the hope that I can make myself more understandable.
I have said that the Europeans and by logical extension, America have been building economies based on technology for more than two millenia. By this, I mean that Europeans, with individual and disparate skills and expertise in myriads of fields, have learnt to come together, to build structures and infrastructure for which we come to admire them. Thus, when we look at an A-380 airplane, or an I-Phone, we marvel at the engineering skills that brought these into existence. These are marvelous inventions indeed! However, we forget to take into account the tens of thousands – yes, tens of thousands - of diverse skills that brought these into exisence. These skills range from the expertise of the janitorial crew to the highest level of management. If these other skills had not been available, the engineers would not have had the opportunty to put their knowledge to use.
Now, I talked about the project owner. This is the one that is responsible for the planning, financing, executing, and completing a project in order to achieve the desired objective. This person, group or institution is also directly responsible for pulling these disparate skills together and making them achieve the goal he set. This person, group or institution is definitely more important that an engineer, technologist or scientist in the achievement of a goal, for without him, the engineer will be of no use.
In the ownership of a project, the level of commitment is definitely crucial. I have poined out that in most cases, the individual who is ready to commit his life and resources to a project is definitely able to achieve more than an institution or goverment.
Management of people is a lesson that the productive European countries and America learned many centuries ago and that has made them highly successful. Pulling experts together to achieve a set goal is itself a skill that must be learned by eperience. Asking our governments to do this subjects us to probable failure since the commitment will not be there even of the financial resources are available.
And definitely, asking our engineers and scientists to perform without this support system is setting them and us up for disappointment. An engineer or scientist is only as good as the institution in which he works. A fish is alive because it swims in water. If you put it on dry land, even though you stuff it with a lot of food, it soon becomes a dead fish.
In order for us, as Africans to gain these skills that only come with experience, each of us must commit to a goal we are interested in and become experts in that area. Within his area, we will be able to manage others, and set achievable goals, and generally become experts. Without these individual expertise, we will not be able to do many things.
I have chosen not to directly respond to some of the issues you raised in your article because I personally am not an expert in those areas. However, I laugh at your conclusion about Nigerians:
'Those that the gods will make slaves must first be disorganised. Nigerians are disorganised, they cannot organise even for a day, not to talk of future.' S. Kadiri
This to me, may constitute an individual challenge for you. No kidding. Set up a project whose ultimate objective is the organization of Nigerians and see if Nigerians will not respond.
FAKINLEDE
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