Lagos — Development is driven by people and the best investment in people is education. To put Nigeria's human resource needs in perspective, Chikas Ohadoma spoke with Mr. Hubert Charles, the country representative of UNESCO, on the right kind of education for Nigeria and the place of science education can play in national development

Recently, you had a meeting with President Olusegun Obasanjo, and some other groups, could you tell us about them? Hubert Charles: The meeting resulted from the desire on our part to provide the

President with an update on the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) activities that fall within the frame work of what we call the UNESCO/Nigeria Special Agreement. You may recall that at the point when Nigeria had its democratic system restored the President visited UNESCO and as a result of that visit and the commitment of the UNESCO Director-General as well as the conference to support Nigeria so that the foundations of democracy in the country could be strengthened and that progress could be made on areas we deemed by the president to be priority; for example, basic education on basic science. But UNESCO responded to that initiative by signing with Nigeria that special agreement. This has four components: basic education, technical and vocational education, science education and education sector analysis.

This programme has been running now for almost two years and though we have been reporting to headquarters about progress made with regard to those areas as to exactly what we are doing with the framework, some of them have been funded in part by extra-budgetary resources provided by Japan. We have not formally gone to the President to let him know exactly what we have done. So we organised with his officers this review and reporting session and we are quite pleased at the reaction of the President. The president decided that that interaction between himself and UNESCO be structured and that certain other entities like the ministry of finance be present at those reporting session.

The report that you heard recently was with regard to the second meeting with Mr. President, not the first. So in essence what I can say is that apart from institutionalizing the interaction between UNESCO and himself, the President gave his message an additional initiatives which we wish or which we proposed be subsumed under the Special Agreement. We are referring here to an initiative in HIV/AIDS specifically where we have made up a proposal that UNESCO system be provided for ensuring that virtually every secondary school has a "School Boost HIV/AIDS Awareness Programme". That instead of relying in essence on external assistance, external agencies we should move forward the preventive education agenda that that agenda will be pushed by the school itself. That's school taking responsibility highlighting the importance of pure education, highlighting the importance of teacher competence and knowledge and highlighting the importance of elite, between the school and wider community. This in essence has received the support of the President. The programme also involves assimilated testing. You will recall that one of the key issues in the whole question of HIV/AIDS prevention and in preventing the spread is knowing the status of young people. But there is a total reluctance, almost a near bias almost against testing. So we have included a component in our programme which will make people more familiar with the testing process and as such be in a position to be more welcoming of testing and hence to reap the benefit of knowing exactly what your status is.

In addition to this HIV programme there is one on vocational skills training directed largely at rural youths and in particular the youths of the Niger Delta area. Here again I am pleased to say that there was large unanimous support for this integrated system that will not simply focus on training but that will focus as well on employment creation. So the programme that we will be pushing has a dual role or dual orientation. One is skill training for self employment but also for new employment. So it's skill training but its also for employment creation. In this regard we will be looking at other players, the private sector, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) which have been working in the direction of employment creation, to determine ways in which we can make a link between training and direct employment. To do that you have to have a stronger relationship with the private sector because training does not automatically give you employment. It is employers who give you employment and it's either that or self employment so we will try to focus on those two areas.

The other programme that we presented was on environmental education programme. The idea being that schools again should take the responsibility for infusing into the minds and behaviour of young people while they are at school the idea or knowledge of environment, knowledge of current environmental issues but more than that to transfer that knowledge to actual behaviour change in terms of how they keep their environment, how they relate to plants or how they relate to ornamentals and how they relate to cleanliness and one of those practices of throwing rubbish out of buses and so on and so forth. The final programme that we submitted was a science education programme. One of the key goals of this programme is to link science education more closely to basic education. All along when we talk about basic education, we mean getting through primary school. But somehow or the other that is not all that is interpreted to include concern for science education and no nation rarely at this point can afford not to increase its capacity with regards to teaching science and technology. And as such we will be making sure that the schools really have appropriate equipment, making sure that teachers are trained to use of the equipment and making sure that they are appropriate support structure, whether those support structures have to be trained or reaffirmed. We are not sure at this point but the end result of all intervention in partnership with others will be a strengthened monitoring and support system for science education in the schools that we participate in.

How soon do you hope to begin this programme?

As soon as we can get the funds. The interesting thing of course is that we have suggested that we be enabled in terms of resources to do this. You know of course that UNESCO is not a funding agency and we are hoping and up till now the signs are that there is strong commitment to support UNESCO with resources from entities like the Education Task Fund (ETF), NDDC and similar entities so that we can do what I think is necessary to be done. Hopefully, at some stage, some appropriate stage we will increase the interest of non-Nigerian donors in this programme. I suspect though that the strategy is correct that we focus on internal sources of revenue funding so that ultimately we can demonstrate to people that we are not going to ask them to start it, we are asking them to come in as partners in things that Nigeria determined important enough to begin on its own.

What's the budget like?

Actually we want to make sure that we have the budget right. So even though we have some figures but it will run into billions of naira and of course this will be expendable over time and the cost will be spread across various entities probably, we hope that the ministry of finance has an investment fund that it regards as related to those types of programmes I am talking about. We cannot and as I said before, no nation can afford not to make the necessary amount of investment in critical infrastructure, basic education, science education, technology education but for all intents and purposes all these can be captured into investment in people particularly people who can not have easy assess to facilities in the rural area and these are some of the principles that underline our interest in them.

How much is need for the take off of this programme?

I cannot give a figure but in estimate I think we will require a total of about N2 million to begin. We are going to set up intervention in all the geopolitical zones of the country and we hope to begin with 1200 schools in the HIV programme and we hope to touch all the teacher colleges, all the unity schools but at the same time we want to sell the message that we should learn the lessons of whatever we do we should bring people along in what we are doing before we broadcast it and so again all the states will be involved and the federal capital territory but not all the entities within those states. We will try to do as much as possible and at the same time the goal is not just to deliver services, the goal is to appreciate that we meet all the challenge and to make sure that the capacity is not just in the UNESCO but also within the state because with all intent and purposes we can not deliver if we do not have capacity through the government, states, local government, private sector and other entities to do the delivery. We are not a delivery agent and in that sense of course we will assume full responsibility for the things that we pursue. But the point I am making is that we cannot do this with the small staff that we have even though we have a large staff, it can not be done by UNESCO, it has to be done in partnership with the traditional structures, the parastatal entities take for example MBTE. We feel that it is absolutely important for MBTE to be on board in terms of the vocational programme even though we are talking about the non formal approach it is true to say that the MBTE is not recognizing or has already recognized that it needs itself to move away from formal technical and vocational training into informal, non formal strategies.

I think we will have no choice if we are going to manage these projects and even in partnership with others we will have no choice but to recruit three or four persons who have experience in project management probably financial management as well. But it is important to say that we have to look differently or carefully, I should say, at the question of programme implementation. The goal here is not to develop the capacity of UNESCO and if we are talking basic education, we have to so design the intervention that while we are delivering basic education we are strengthening the entities that have already been set aside to deliver basic education, to supervise basic education and so we will be working the strategy involved very close to partnership with the entities already on the ground.

One of the things about UNESCO, we don't say that we have the capacity, we will never have the capacity and we don't want it really. To do things separate and distinct from the structures established by the state, when we talk about the capacity building, we speak largely about building the capacity of Nigeria to do what needs to be done, to evaluate, to assess, to monitor, to review and to broadcast and if we get that done then we will over time feel comfortable in moving into new area because the capacity will be there on the part of the state.

Sometimes we don't like to say it that most development related entities of the United Nations are valid to the extent that the capacity of the country is weak to do what needs to be done. If that capacity is strong then, I will not say that UNESCO has no role; it is just that it has a different role and it has an evolving role but the ultimate that we should always and I think government should always be reminded that our key function is building capacity.

How would you assess science and technology in Nigeria?

Let me put it very carefully because I think you have to disagree here. One will have to build the capacity of the school system, tertiary system including the university system to deliver. But that is just the educational part of it. There is also the research part of it and that usually is related to independent research laboratories or two departments, relevant departments at university. On the other hand, we have the delivery, actual delivery and you have to link the research sector and the private sector. In other words, you have the components which transform ideas into reality and to render competitive advantage to a country.

And then you have another element as well; you have the professional association of scientists and technologists and so on and so forth. If we look at the Nigerian landscape I think there is quite a bit in place. The university infrastructure I think is there then you have entities some of them paid for or funded by government. If I should say you have a range of entity that are science and technologically in their orientation in their original goal paid for out of public purse and NASENI being the agency that is responsible for the investigation geology, I don't think Nigeria is short of those type of entities.

So for the school system here (primary and secondary schools), because this is were the sector gets its energy, I think its fair to say that less than it's appropriate its being done. Our project that we discussed earlier is going to discuss, for example, equipment in schools both at the primary and secondary levels and even at the tertiary level.

It is not possible to read the benefit that government is making in science and technology, it will restrict the field to be interpreted only in terms of book learning. You have to have practical, you have to have experimentation, you have to be able to capture the imagination of the student in terms of what is possible through scientific manipulation of materials or energy or other sources. And the point I am making, in fact, not enough attention has been paid up till now to the equipping of schools with regard to science equipment.

The other level I think is teacher training. I think it is there to say that there are quite a few science teachers and probably every school has a science teacher but the critical mass needed of teachers to have the impact we speak about particularly at the secondary level that is probably not there so a whole new approach to teaching and to the generation of persons call it scientific and technological workers that is required. You need to develop and generate more science teachers they need to be better distributed particularly in terms of rural areas the people who live in and go to school in the rural areas are no less Nigerians and no less to the full opportunities to be educated and trained in scientific endeavour and take them be workers in that direction. And at the university level I think the statement made in terms of equipment are probably okay if you have to look at what is happening at library, from library to laboratory and see that the equipment required for really stimulating the interest of students is probably not there at the level it used to be. One can go on and say that though a lot is happening and again I want to underscore a point that a lot is happening that the link between research and the private sector, the research and application need to be strengthened. We not very long ago published a little pamphlet on some researches done in terms of indigenous engineering and technological developments in Nigeria. We need to find these inventions where they are and to find them opportunity to strengthen them.

One has quite a bit of talk about the recent satellite launch and I am sure that one would appreciate that even though it's Nigeria in ownership I am not too sure of how much of technological build was actually done in Nigeria. So that by itself am in no way minimizing the importance of this development, in fact, my point really is that technologically, people should seize the opportunity to reinvigorate teachers, to re-invigorate research and to do that locally so that the spread effect of that massive investment in that satellite would be felt at the level of the school, at the level of the tertiary institution and the level of the research laboratory. I am afraid that I have spent quite sometime in responding to your question and talking about what needs to be done but I think it is fair to say that quite a bit requires to be done. And all these must be seen against the back drop of Nigerian competitors because Nigeria by now, given the time that it has been at this development effort, given the rich load of brain power in this country and even wealth generating by its natural resources, should be more than a tiger and at this point in time one cannot say that the technological base required for a tiger state has actually been achieved.

When do we expect to feel the impact of this programme?

I think almost immediately. The thing is if you get equipment in schools tomorrow and you spent the next two weeks orienting the teachers to the use of the equipment and the equipment that we are talking about is at the cutting edge. It stands alone for example it doesn't need electricity but these are so designed that the principles are evident through the use of the equipment themselves. It is a new approach to scientific training because the classroom can be transformed into a laboratory rather than taking everything to the lab. So in answer to your question I am saying that immediate impact can be felt within weeks of that equipment get into the school because the students will have immediate assess. The equipment comes with a range of guides which transform the very little time and ignite into one who can teach that principles. So even though we are pushing forward at least three qualified science teachers for each secondary school and a situation where these science cannot train other teachers we have auxiliaries who can train other persons. So we that the impact should be immediate.

What are some of these new inventions?

These are miniature pieces of scientific equipment. Some of them done through NASENI and most of it done in Israel and some of it done in South Africa. The idea basically is to be able to present a range of scientific experiment to the students to use them minimal type of scientific apparatus and to be able to do so in the range of time subject matters we afford at the school level. The thing to be said also is that all these are consistent with the curriculum of the West. They originated from this central school attitude that have been agreed should be taught in the Nigerian secondary and primary school.

What's about this science curriculum?

Science curriculum is something that has been done in Nigeria for some time constantly. It's not the establishment of a new curriculum we are after but making sure that the curriculum is properly taught, that the equipment required to support the curriculum is there, that the training required to make the most of the curriculum is also there.

Do you think that Nigeria really needs the recently launched satellite now?

Without hesitation the answer is yes. I think that investment in the development and access to information which is basically what we are talking about and scientific information is something that each country should pursue. My view is that each country, particularly a country like Nigeria, should not shy away from the idea of research and investigation into the capacity to launch and in the capacity to design that type of equipment. I think though that something else needs to be considered. It is not the technology that is the main consideration it is the range of uses that you can put the satellite to. And one hopes that NigeriaSAT-1 will have a variety of uses that would be weather-related that would be scientific research-related but also in terms of communication so that the capacity needed, for instance, to broadcast, educational messages to pass on through all corners of Nigeria could be done. And that one can be done by satellite. That one hopes that it has the capacity to do those types of things in addition to the information. One hopes that it is multi-faceted and that its goals are effectual, not just scientific but developmental as well.

Why do you think that science is not well developed in Nigeria?

I think it is largely because of the attention paid to teaching the subjects to exciting people about the subject, to allowing the subject to be part of the growth of imagination and if you recall your days on school, your best subjects will be likely the subject where you had excellent teachers where you have a teacher that you like .So there is a link between one sphere of a subject and the way in which that subject was taught, the way in which that teacher was able to excite interest.

The Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) recently did a research as to what is the problems of science teachers, mathematics teachers and I think a lot references were made to the absence of scientific equipment, absence of public lab, the absence of qualified as one of the factors. And my hope is that if we can get a generation of teachers to stimulate interest number one early and here we go back to the question of primary education. If you can catch people catch young children when they are more anxious to learn and if you can excite them about language, you can also excite them about science, if you can excite them about reading, you can excite them about experimentation and to take that excitement through the secondary period and into the university, then I think you have the means to have a greater following.

Do you think that parents have a role to play in the choice of subjects offered by their children?

That is an interesting one am not too sure that they do not have a role to play I doubt so. Am ensure that some of them have too much of a great role. Probably the majority of the students at school today in many developing countries have parents who did not have a chance to go to secondary school or primary school so they are not necessarily in the position to advice. I think the question of parents who believe that they really need to get the children in one direction or the other is usually restricted to very small portion of the population those who are of the view that they are sitting at dark ages to be secured by being a doctor, white collar jobs particularly, and that for me reflects to me a very static view of the world. The president was not very long ago talking about the importance of change and it is amazing how the situation of many jobs have changed even without we noticing it. The so called menial and blue collar jobs the gap between those job and hi-technology is almost non existent and when you talk about a mechanic, the cars that are put in use now you can no longer say that you need mechanics because you probably need more technologists and very soon the remuneration of people who are fixing your cars will reflect the sophistication of the cars not just the job of being a mechanic. So certainly in my own case, I had absolutely no influence on what my children chose to do.

What area of discipline would you advise children to study more?

It is a rather difficult area but to answer your question I think the whole question of services and industries and it is difficult to be more specific that. Teaching, and I start with teaching rather others because people are more inclined to run away from teaching but there is no new generation and there is no increased knowledge on the part of the new generation if they are not taught. So I think the core area has to be teaching. I mentioned the other technology and probably the most exciting area really is the manipulation of technological knowledge for the creation of new products for the transformation of the notion of a product. Take for example, pharmacy before the whole question of pharmacology was largely a manipulation of chemistry, now it's been it's been manipulation of genetics. You know it's the same subject but the basis on which it was built is entirely different and now that the human genuine is no longer a total mystery the whole question of cure and hence of new medical product is going to be increasingly in scientific. Basically I am saying science and technology is an area I think one should go into. Of course one needs to look at the society that what to be done at any point in time depends on what is required. That has to be the first question. The education structure needs to determine in alliance with the business sector where we want to take this country to. What is the basis in terms of the skill required to take it there and hence what needs to be taught. I will prefer if one give it in that direction than any other approach. Of course no matter how much, Nigeria needs a range of skills, it is not an isolated country and one does not expect that the totality of its sons and daughters will always be bound to the country and hence the Nigerian environment should not solely determine where people go and do. We are no with all intents and purposes a global situation and hence those who can and those who are so inclined can be looking at the globally and say well I want to go into an area not simply because it will match the Nigerian need but much globally. One can look at the problem in another way, one can say that the primary goal will probably or should be satisfaction of national need.

My point is that if you want to go into medicine then you can relay to what is needed in the country. Take for example malaria, you cannot export doctors who specialize in the treatment of malaria in the United Kingdom. One should see that the demand for malaria treatment in the U.K will be almost nil, that's not because it is not needed but because it is a small specialization. The point I am making is that I would appreciate a situation where people reach a pinnacle of their career in response to Nigerian needs and put back a bank of experience abroad. In fact if you are highly qualified in your area very likely and you begin doing what is necessary like writing and researching very likely somebody will pull up or will recognize you. I said the subject is deep because at times I am not too sure whether people make decisions as to what they should do on the basis of Nigeria need. It is a question of the individual and his or her satisfaction of individual needs as opposed to the individual and his or her place in the country. I think this is an issue that probably should be much more debated in Nigeria because I get the impression at times that I am wrong most times I think I am actually wrong because I am not as broad within the country as I need to be you know to make those statements to make sure that they are valid but one gets the impression at times that the selfish components of a human predominates as opposed to consideration of immediate community and ultimately of country. I think this is important to imbibe them to national greatness if I may put it that way.

Can you talk about the relationship between science and bio-technology?

I think is the question of pharmacology, there are other new materials all these cutting inch thing, I think that all university should be doing research and hence exciting young people but certainly the production of new strains of grains and not just talking about Genetic Modified foods (GM Foods). I think it's just a suggestion as to where the technology can take you. The manipulation of foods to give you high yield is something that I think we must go into and that Nigeria needs to develop new capacity. But before instead of just identifying a global area I think I want to go back to the suggestion that, (and UNESCO can only help in building capacity to do that) that the country really need to look at itself, institution to look at the environment and determine what needs to be done by a way of research in that environment. We want a situation where a Nigerian is not just taking technology from oversea but to take the opportunity to be a generator, producer of new knowledge as well. So the broad area of biotechnology is most important for agriculture, for industries for fertilizer all that Nigeria needs to do.

What's your advise to students as regards to choosing subjects in school?

Well am not too sure we haven't talked about that already that each generation provide new challenges, new capacity, new technology and some of them may seem at times unattractive but that it is important to develop the capacity of the school system to nurture interest in science and technology. It is important for the teacher to see him or herself as central to that process of nurturing. It is important for government to recognize that considerable investment in infrastructure particularly in terms of lab, in terms of training and re-training of teachers and lecturers and that should be in place. It is important for the lecturers themselves, to see their task, not just in terms of teaching but in also in terms of research and the thing about universities is that they are spaces where the state usually pay for persons of capacity to be set aside to teach and to research and the more that they can begin to access themselves in terms of the delivery of those cooking issues the question is to what extent are they training out new and exciting students and excited a new areas and the extent to which they are. Taking the time and recognizing the investment that is being made in by society to generate new knowledge. Is not just to teach but also to research and at times the research environment is not necessarily ideal but that does not mean the imperative on their part. They had already been set aside they are already privileged. Sometimes one gets the impression that the university community does not recognize that it is a privileged community and that its chief responsibility is to find ways and means in terms of returning to the wider community benefits that should be secured from that investment that community made for them and these are the two principles areas of feeding new capacity to the young generation but also research and particularly we can move in the way of linking research to industry and then one can see the two links to which the university community can return to the wider community some of the benefits to be secured from big investment being put by Nigeria.

What's your advise to the parents?

I think parents need to understand that there is a lot about the wider community the prospect that they do not know because these are things that are not of their generation so that they need to at one level nurture and encourage and at the same time they need to take the back seat and to allow these students to take advantage of new opportunities in wider community, in the university community, certainly to the interest of the new knowledge that has been generated. So parents have a role I think the principal role is to create the opportunity, to create the space where and to some extent to make the investment required for students to grow and to nurture and to expand but at the same time the parents must realise that their responsibility is not 100 percentage. In fact, at times I think parents overdo it by not assigning appropriate levels of responsibility on the students. The students have to realise that because it is an investment at the community and to some extent the family in his or her education the quicker that returns can be brought back to the community and the family the better. This is the investment principle. One cannot forever go on investing in an entity and there is no benefits to be secured from that. The point I am making is that we do not sufficiently engage the student in the idea of responsibility and there is a lot of ideas about entitlement. So I am entitled to free education but nothing is free. So the student also need to understand the extent of his or her responsibility to return to the family, to return to the wider community.

Some of those investment that have been provided and as such they should try to get all the figures as quickly as possible and not to entertain the idea simply because it is free.

Whose fault is it that many students now only go to school just to acquire a certificate and many of them do not necessarily attend lectures but get the certificate by all means?

I would say that the fault is not necessarily on the part of the student. The fault is on the part of the employer. I believe seriously that a degree if you focus only on passing your exam then you should not be given as much place particularly in the wider community and the student who looked at the opportunity to learn as a new engagement with society and many times someone graduates, really what the graduation signifies is that there is potential there. It is not necessarily a reward for any thing. It is simply a key which says that, if you go into the proper door that the world is opened to you and I want to make this point a little clearer to graduates from institution of higher learning