OSINBAJO CALLS FOR NATIONAL POLICY ON ICT EDUCATION:

In an exclusive interview with Daily Sun recently in Lagos, the professor of Law and lecturer, University of Lagos (UNILAG), argued that considering the population of Nigerians in pursuit of the golden fleece, there is a huge market for computers. He called for national policies on ICT that would facilitate local production of computers and laptops. Excerpts

Considering the dismal performance of students in terminal examinations, why do you think government has not come up with a clear-cut strategy to stem the development?

There's a point I've been making all along, that we have a failed government at the centre. It's a problem. You must have a proper national policy for education. Knowledge is the key everywhere in the World today. In the past, manufacturing - just manufacturing things – was what made nations great. That was industrial revolution. But today, it's knowledge, it's about knowledge.

That's why you have a whole network of social media and all of those things - the computer age and all that. If you don't have knowledge now, you've failed. And once you don't have a national government that understands that, it's a failure. Unfortunately, we have not heard of a strategy coming from the federal government on how to redress the complete failure of education in Nigeria today. And that's the failure of the federal government.

All examinations now are registered online; in fact, most aptitude tests are now conducted via the use of computers; yet, most public schools lack computers; do you think that lack of ICT knowledge can be linked to students' poor performances in their final examinations?

Even in university computer technology faculties, there's no computer, let alone in public primary and secondary schools. So, that's why I'm talking about national policy. You must have a national policy on ICT education. It will make it easy for people to assemble laptops locally or to produce them locally. If we have the number of students that we have in Nigeria, the number of young people who are going to school, there's a huge market for producing ICT materials. Huge market for computers, huge market for software, but somebody has to encourage that. Look at what has happened in India – the ICT policy in India is what generated all of the production of computers and software. That's what we need to do.

Why is India better than us?
Does poor teacher welfare have any impact on education?

Because the teachers are not well-paid, we will not attract the right quality of people into teaching. The reason why people who should be teaching are in telecom, in the oil sector, in the banks is because teachers are not well-paid. Labour will move to where it is well- rewarded. That's what happens. Unless you reward labour well, people will not want to waste their time labouring. If you reward teachers well, people will go into teaching. If you don't reward it well, people won't go there.

In line with the much-talked about improving the reading culture, and enhancing education in Nigeria, how do you assess the state of libraries and laboratories in schools today, especially, public schools?

What governments in other nations where they take education serious do is, in the first place, there's national policy on importation of scientific equipment, there's national policy on importation of relevant books, there's national policy on importation of relevant technology. That's why I say you have to think, people have to sit down and think and plan. You can't do it by gallivanting all over the place as our president is doing. If you say I want every Nigerian child to have access to the right type of education like others are having internationally, (Nigeria has the resources to do it), it's a national policy.

You cannot say I'm going to impose high tariff on books, high tariff on this, high tariff on that and lower tariff on other things and allow people to import diesel as they like and do all sorts of things; you don't expect national policy to work. You have to have a policy that favours the bringing in or the production of those things locally. We have to have a policy that favours this, otherwise it won't work. Books are good. Even if you equip libraries in public schools or public libraries, it may not interest people in reading. Now, I have a project that I'm doing. It's a church related project that has to do with teaching young people, children on how to read. It comes from my own experience as child. As a child, fortunately, my father and my mother were very serious on education. And my father invested heavily, especially on primary education in us. The first time I ever saw a library was when I was seven years old.

It was in Corona School Yaba, military compound; I walked into a library, a library that was so beautiful. The books were everywhere, lovely, it was a children's library in the school. When I walked into the library, even the fragrance of the books was something else. The books were very nice and neatly arranged. There were comics, there were various other books; colourful and all of that. I sat in the place and I enjoyed reading. It sparked something in me.

But today, some children are even fearful of a book. Anytime they see a book. It has to do with somebody beating them or somebody saying you don't know how to read. So, there's an atmosphere that is created. And that's why I'm saying that, at the age of three, four, five, we must be teaching children to read and write. There must be an after-school programme; a lot of us have to volunteer to go and sit with these children; just reading to them. My own teacher read to me, read good stories, beautiful stories. And I enjoyed the stories as he read them. There's a whole cultural thing about ensuring that people are enjoying reading. Otherwise, it's not enough to say, 'go and equip the libraries.'

What other ways do you think can be adopted to revamp education in Nigeria? Are you among the school of thought that is canvassing that all politicians should be compelled to have their children school in public school here in the country?

There are many politicians who have their children in Nigerian schools anyway. But part of the reasons why the politicians who do not have their children in schools in Nigeria is because they also know that the schools are bad. Anybody - not just politicians anybody who has a little money is looking for the best for his children. So, they're going to go elsewhere. I think that in particular, anybody who says, I want to govern, all politicians at every level; we ought to ask to him, 'are your children in schools here in the country?' It's not just schools, we need to ask, 'do you use our hospital, do you go there for medical treatment? They have no choice; they have to go on the roads like we do.

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