The Nigerian government has been asked to embrace the ways of transforming the education system that has become obsolete and in need of change.
Discussing the ways of transforming the education system on Channels Television’s programme, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Profound Learning Institute, Tom Rudmik, suggested a two-step process.
He said that the first process would be to identify the parts that should be fixed which are more of the surface level while the second would be complete transformation of system which is more difficult and involves the transformation of what is obsolete.
“One is to identify the parts that have to be fixed. Fix what is obvious. You have major issues for surface level in Nigeria around illiteracy and that needs to be fixed,” Tubmik said.
Using the transformation of the old means of transportation from the horse and buggy to the automobile, he said that education had become an obsolete system, as it was designed for the industrial age to equip students or create a workforce for the factories where students would conform, comply and meet standard.
He pointed out that the world has changed and that the education perspective had equally changed.
“The world now, from education perspective, is changing with the primary competitive advantages found in our abilities to innovate to create and to design. The traditional model of education actually diminishes those important capabilities that are required to be competitive,” he said.
Different Learning Model
Rudmik spoke on the side-line of the Nigerian Economic Summit holding in Abuja and he stressed that the summit was about global competitiveness, which had become a major challenge.
He stressed that trying to catch up with the western world would not create the competitiveness that was sought.
“Countries like US, Canada and Singapore are looking at their education system because “it is obsolete and needs transformation”.
“The two processes should be looked at as duo-pranged process. You cannot ignore some of the obvious problems. You need to bring initiatives to begin to address some of the obvious problems.
“When it comes to system transformation, it is a lot more difficult task. There are so many changes that needed to take place in the thinking of people. It requires a different kind of leadership,” he said.
Using the analogy of the caterpillar metamorphosis to butterfly, he explained that “the caterpillar has imaginal cells that gives it the ability to become a butterfly”, emphasising that school teachers’ ability to see the future should be expounded.
According to him, the transformation process would not be a system-wide process aimed at changing everything because a system-wide process was not possible.
He also stated that the transformation process would be based on the law of network which stipulates that “if you reach the tipping point, which is around 10 per cent, then you have the power within the network to cause transformation to occur”.
He said: “We did a 10 per cent adoption rate to affect the entire system.
“We have observed that things can happen much more rapidly using the social media. Giving some of the new tools in the new systems media; it is possible to see a social change within the education system.
“We can demonstrate within three to five years that a different kind of learning model is possible and how quickly that is adopted, time will tell.
Change Education
He explained that the process of transforming the education system would start from finding imaginal leaders that had the fundamental desire to be part of making a difference in their world, pointing out that the world system was adverse to transformation.
“They are designed to maintain themselves and balance with feedback reinforcing loops. The governments do not have the abilities to go out and be radical with their message because it won’t get them re-elected. The system itself is designed to maintain the statuesque. So, all they do is just try to mainly improve that caterpillar. There should be bold leaders that will say we need radical changes. They should be in schools and government. It requires a lot of courage to make an obsolete system more efficient,” he said.
Rudmik also stressed that “there is a God-given ability in humans to become imaginal, to become leaders that see the future and be able to pull it back. It is innate in every human being.
“The challenge is that in education, the system of conform and comply actually diminishes the neurological pathways that are required for creative thinking. Studies have shown, in the neuroscience area that the longer you stay in school the less creative capacity that a human being has”.
He suggested a long term process that involved change in education by going away from testing answers only to creating conditions in which students become creators and designers of the future.
According to him, the short term answer is that the capabilities in the human to see the future should be developed, suggesting the development of learning adventure projects where the teacher sets a condition for the student to become a designer or to create solutions to future challenges.
He also stressed that only by having a practical knowledge of what the future would be like that an individual could create solutions to the challenges that may arise in the future.