Scholar advocates review of Nigeria’s education curriculum to accommodate creativity, imagination and innovation

By Ogundele Olanrewaju

An Aspiring Nigerian Scholar from DeutscherAkademischerAustauschdienst German Academic Exchange Service, Mr. Oladapo Opeyemi Ajayi has advised the Nigerian Government as a matter of urgency to come up with policies that would help reinvent and get rid of the many bureaucracy that overburden creativity and imagination inorder to steer knowledge creation towards solution in the education sector .

Mr. Oladapo ,a PhD student at DAAD , Germany made this call in Ibadan, Oyo state capital while addressing newsmen at the PRE – DAAD Alumni inter disciplinary conference organized for 36 Qualified Nigerian youths picked from various universities across the south west region of the country , with the theme “Falling Apart ? Inclusion as intervention into the Nigerian experience.”

Oladapo noted that, though the Nigerian education system was not as bad as most people pictured it, with emphasis that he had also benefited from the system, pointed out that the whole sector needed an immediate overhauling .

He noted that the Nigerian education curriculum as the foundation to learning, currently seemed archaic compared to other developed countries of the world, adding that policy makers needed to look at ways to adjust it, such that it would aid creativity, imagination and steer knowledge creation towards solution.

He added that as Individuals “I think we also need to be very deliberate with how we approach knowledge, and we need to take advantage of the fact that interdisciplinary have come to stay Within the academia ,we are not just defined by your own discipline and orientation, anybody would assume that I would also be a sociologist on this, I am supposed to be an expert on literary studies but thankfully I have gained a lot on interdisciplinary and moreover my thoughts are focus more in that direction, I wouldn’t want to compare the German education and the Nigerian education as I have both benefited from both Greatly”

He added that as stakeholders “where We need to improve; I think we should improve , and until we know that education is a serious business and it’s connected to our existence , connected to our vision and until we know we have the agency through education to forge a future we want for ourself , I think there will always be a missing gap that needs to be work on.”

While being asked on how important adding critical thinking as a course to the Education curriculum, he said “you called critical thinking , I would say interdisciplinary thinking ,like we need to open up the boundaries in all forms and I mean If you go through the process of this program ,we are not even thinking of knowledge from the later perspective alone, our mothers in the market organises themself ,our brothers and uncles at the motor parks, They have a structure to understand and learn from ,we have traditional system that works, we have medicine ecology that is there, the resources is there ,Anyway , when we think of knowledge its self as Something thats symbiotically related and can drive solution , innovation, that’s the basics , beyond critical thinking , interdisciplinary thinking is very important and we should do more in that regards .”

Mr. Oladapo , who is also a PhD student at the international student of Africa studies , DAAD, researching on Fuji music and everyday life in contemporary urban space, explained that the pre conference was an idea to be more practical with in the academic context, where conferences was not just about the emerging or established scholar speaking to themselves about idea, but with the need to connect knowledge production and practice to solution within the Africans, Nigerian context.

Speaking further he said “ we need to do more that is why we created an offshoot project for Nigerian undergraduate students and those aspiring to gain admission into the university. we have about 36 so or more because some people later showed up , and they were all pulled from various universities , amongst which are OAU, UI , FUTA , Bowen university and even young secondary school leavers”

He explained that “the project has effect on various multiple stand ,this is also good for them to network ,also a way of restoring the dignity of the Nigerian youth back to them , they are important ,they are graduates, and they needed to be treated as very important . They are the future , as much as people consider me to be youth , This are the youth now, am not a qualified a youth as them, am a father of two girls , these are people that, I hope will shape the future of my children even not directly, most likely to be their teachers and their mentors at one point or the other. the project has benefited a lot from the DAAD .

Some of the beneficiaries from FUTA, BOWEN University, Obafemi Awolowo University and young secondary school graduate who spoke to newsmen explained that they have benefited greatly from the conference, noting that it was inclusive and diverse rating it high amongst other conference attended this year .

The Highpoint of the pre conference was the presentation of papers from professionals on various career path, amongst which the General manager Operations Splashfm and Lagelufm, MR. Babatunde Olawuwo did justice to the paper titled the media, its fight and fight against it.