Professor Godwill Obioma is the Executive Secretary of Nigerian Education Research and Development Council (NERDC). In this interview with Abdullahi M. Gulloma, he spoke about the curriculum development and research undertakings by the council.

You have been at the helm of affairs at NERDC for a couple years now, how has leading the council being and what would you say is your greatest challenge?

When I got to the council on my first day as the chief accounting officer, I was greeted from the express to the council by dust because the road was not tarred. I met just one rickety building standing; rickety in the sense that there were leaking roofs, the air conditioners were not walking, no power supply at all from what was then NEPA and now PHCN and the environment itself was not welcoming. It was not reflective of what is called a research institute because it didn't have an ambiance of research.

There were conference centre that was outgrown with weeds and scores of chalet or rooms, all not used and abandoned in desolation. I looked around and saw abandoned vehicles littered around. I moved over to the staff quarters where we have the primary school, it was in a very desolate shape. In fact, some staff of the council were looking worn-out because from the clothes they were putting on, you could hardly think they were public servants of any sort.

That was what I met the first day, and so, I told myself that there would be a need to re-engineer the place and put a life into the environment and also look at the mandate of the council again and see what the problems were and what went wrong along the line. I thought we should create a mission and a vision and that became a challenge because as a public entity we need to have a vision as per where we want to be at a certain stage, and a mission, that is how to get to where we want to be. Since then, we've been able to turn around the fortunes of the council and make it a force to be reckoned with as far as education research and development is concerned.

From your explanation, would you say that NERDC was simply abandoned or it was lack of seriousness on the part of government or leadership failure on the part of NERDC officials?

It wasn't lack of seriousness because when I came in 2005, government was thinking seriously of reform of the education and other sectors. You will recall that NEEDS was established in 2004, which was our local response to global reforms. If you look at the NEEDS document, it captured education sector, and so, I wouldn't say it was lack of seriousness. Again, I wouldn't say there was leadership failure because I am not in a position to asses my predecessors. I know that the lady I took over from is a renowned professor and the person that stayed there is also a professor and I can counted about three professors that headed the place before me.

My assessment from literature before me pointed to lack of funds and greater difficulties to create avenues for bringing in funds. I will also say that the activities of the council tended to be so narrow. For instance, curriculum efforts were going on at very, very low ebb.

So, I think was so much of a narrow conception of what the mandates of the council are. Even in book development, I saw in the literature that in 2004 the council made efforts to review the book policy but in a very narrow sense because there was a draft book policy existing but the problem is that it was looked at from the basic education perspective, it didn't link up with publishers. So, it was difficulty, difficulty to create windows of opportunity in which we could attract funds.

To what extent has your research undertakings been able to influence policies aimed at improving the standards and quality of basic education?

There are reform strategies that are very well articulated. For instance in the last three or four years, we had policies of the nine year basic curriculum, policies of the new book development strategy in gendering the fairness into education, reducing poverty, recreating educating into entrepreneur level and so on. These are good policies but I felt the problem was to map out a good strategy of implementation and to put these strategies in coherent form.

The issue of nine-year basic education curriculum was described by the Education Minister as a "curriculum revolution." It is going to be a nine-year thing starting from primary one, two, three and we will phase out, in a systematic and gradual form, the old content. In the process, we will train teachers, provide resources and so on.

It is a systematic thing, this is the difference, take for instance, what will happen in 2011 as it affects the new Senior Secondary Schools, it is a curriculum innovation. We have planned that curriculum last year and this year, we have finished it, what is going to engage us now is to prepare the resources to implement the curriculum including teachers handbook and provision of text books. The SSS curriculum will start in September this year but the nine-year basic education curriculum started in September 2008 and it will take six to four years. The junior secondary school component will take three years. This means that those who are going through the primary school now will take six years to complete the new second term and three more years to complete the junior secondary school. You can imagine the gradual process.

How does it affect a proprietor who owns only junior secondary school?

What the nine-year basic education curriculum is saying is that knowledge is systematic. The policy says education will be free and compulsory for nine years, and it means from primary school to junior secondary school. It explains that no extraneous condition should prevent a child from completing junior secondary school. Our specific term on Education for All (EFA) in Nigeria means you must complete primary school and junior secondary school. So, you go to your village and do primary school and we expect that nothing should prevent you from getting into junior secondary school.

Are you saying that this time around, we are going to have a curriculum for national development?

Yes. The nine-year programme provides a basis for entrepreneurship, it provides a basis for higher education, it provides a basis for second language as French because language is very important in national development. What we do now is link to work an industry. Even at the senior secondary school level, the new curriculum that is going to be implemented next year makes it possible for every child to study a trade which means that if you come out of school you should have something to fall back on. At the same time, if you have to go for higher education, you must be well-prepared for the higher education.

In fact, the nine-year basic curriculum has been adjudged as having the best tactics in African perspective at the International Bureau for Education in Geneva. There is no doubt that the nine-year basic education curriculum will boost education in the country and make our children self-reliant.

Are the council's research programmes for development or mere jamboree?

Really, our research is for national development, and I will you two examples. Let me start with the issue of admission into Nigerian universities and reduction of examination malpractice. We conducted a research on how WAEC, NECO and NAPTEB examinations and JAMB affects good performance in the university because there was a quarrel on the type of students found in the university. Majority of the students come in with six credits and above but they cannot perform. Our concern as a research agency was to provide evident-based information to say this is where the problem lies. The idea of post-UME came from our research, and we said there was the need to put in quality assurance mechanism to save the good ones because WAEC and NECO were not good predictors. Therefore, even if students go through WAEC and NECO there are variables which we will use to save the good from the bad into university education.

The other aspect is the one we launched last year, and it was tagged Opportunity for Increasing Education in Nigeria. It was conceptualised to provide opportunities of what is available in increasing education to ensure greater access that has engendered the policy on gender education and the policy on special education. This enabled us to translate the nine-year basic education curriculum into 3,000 sign languages for those who are visually impaired, we have also brailed it. We didn't have a nationally brailed curriculum before and we say if you are in special education, if you are visually impaired, your handicap and physical challenge shouldn't be an impediment.

When we conducted the researches in the north, we have the issues of girl-child drop out and so on. In Lagos, we have the issue of street children. It was a big research and it cost us way over N30 million because we got about 10 consultants from the university, civil society, workers and teachers who helped us distribute the instrument. It was also publicly launched.

But researches such as predictive study of WAEC and NECO examinations for university consumed just about N5 million. You cannot say this is the amount you have for research; it is when you design the research that the framework will determine the amount to be used to carry out the research.