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Our Country at 46: Ind...Read the full article.

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Thanks for your essay.It was direct and touched the key sectors that need intervention.As much as I agree with your STEM education.I also think we should encourage liberal arts education possibly for those doing STEM.I have a few things to add as well

First, the world of content development is also part of the information age.And that is an area were Nigeria can make a lot of money.The ability to produce content can help enhance Nigeria's growth in the domain of electronic capitalism.We need Nigerians producing softwares like programs, films and games.

Second, we need to integrate our railway and road network within an urban policy framework that supports a multi-modal form of transportation ( including cycling). The reasons for this approach are many. Amongst these is the need to enhance sustainability practices that supports sound energy policy.

Third, we should be careful to contain developments from spreading out to enable us conserve our natural resources and secure agricultural lands.The era in which we have sprawling cities should be contained.The religious ministries that have their camping grounds tearing into agricultural lands should be addressed.A compact development within cities would also support sustainable practices, and should less energy and infrastructure costs.

Fourth, industrial parks are good,but the best practices should be looked into around the world.The issue of restrictive zoning of uses , except on few occasions has become old fashioned, and does not help sustainable practices.It has no eternal utility value for developments.It partly explains why industrial estates in lagos have been turned into churches .So, the better approach is encouraging mixed uses that help secure urban vitality, sense of place and animation in our cities, while making use of fewer resources. This kind of approach helps encourage walking and pedestrian friendly cities.It supports sustainability too.

We need a comprehensive approach to designing a functional and a resilient economy.This can only happen if we have a mixture of professionals across different disciplines.And above is some of the issues we can give serious thought to.

I hope someday we can have serious folks that understand what it takes to move the country forward.

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Looks like the Nelson Mandela Institution's African Institute for Scien... will take a step in the direction you've mentioned when it opens in Abuja next year. I agree with Katampe that the way forward should also include a liberal arts education in addition to a science and engineering focused one, so Nigerian students come away with a deep understanding of their rich heritage and how to use their scientific/technological education to improve Nigeria's lot. As an example of this, I like the way Ghana's Ashesi U has all their science students take a liberal arts core curriculum that includes courses such as African Philosophical Thought, Comparative Politics, and Social Inquiry. It would be great to have science/technology students who are well-rounded and have some idea of African literature, philosophy, and sociology.

I just found out that South Africa, with a population of 40 million produces approximately 40,000 megawatts of electri... and is already making plans to produce more. That's 10 times what Nigeria produces for a population that's 1/3 of Nigeria's. We need to talk to people from other African countries when they get something right and learn what we can from them.

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Bolaji Aluko,

The question is,

Who has the WILLINGNESS & ABILITY to bear the risk involved in working towards these goals?

Sincerely, when I see people like you and then think about the status of Nigeria and its people, I am just aghast. :eek: When tigers are satisfied with eating grass, wetin we want make goat do?

Military, civilian, man or woman, it doesn't matter who ruled or will rule Nigeria. What matters is the personal qualities of the person, how willing they are to work hard for the interests of their people and to bear the risk involved. Afterall, Jerry Rawlings was a military man and Nigerians are rushing to live, school and do business in Ghana. The somewhat more "enabling environment" of that country is directly attributable to Rawlings.

Get Yours!
Obugi.

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techsista:

I am a member of AIST's African Science committee, and am one of those leading the Chemical Engineering effort.


QUOTE

African Science Committee: The ASC also has already been established by NMI and is responsible to the NMI BoD. It is chaired by Professor Wole Soboyejo (Princeton University and a member of the ISAB) and comprises a large number of eminent scientists and professionals. Approximately half of the ASC are African nationals based in leading institutions in Europe and the United States and the other half are African nationals based in universities on the continent.

UNQUOTE

The liberal arts component - with some emphasis on management, enterpreneurship, business, etc. - are indeed to be adequately addressed in any AIST.

So Katampe's concerns are to be addressed.

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With all due respects to Professor Aluko's intellectual station and the preceding arguements for the intermingling of liberal arts courses with science courses in our schools, I vehemently oppose such a philosophy on the grounds that such practises only serve to dilute the focus of technically inclined students, and needlessly encumber them with disciplines immaterial to their careers.

Nigeria needs science and technology and wagon loads of it. We are already up to our necks in liberal arts studies. Moreover, I find the suggestion of increasing awareness of the liberal arts among science students perplexing in a country endowed with a sumptous and wondrous culture. Liberal arts studies should be confined to the domain of liberal arts majors. Its pursuit should be stipulated as an elective for science majors, not as a scholastic millstone for people already grappling with their considerably challenging science courses.

During my school years, I had the excruciatingly unpleasant distraction of contending with one of these liberal arts courses purported to infuse the student with a more rounded disposition. Psychology was the liberal arts class in this instance. I recall languishing through successive nights of seemingly interminable passages on cognitive development, works by Freud, Piaget and other works in the western psychology canon. To say that I found this experience exasperating would be belittling the undesirable consequences it wrought on my devotion to my science major. When I realized that I invested only a scant day or two preparing for my chemistry exams, and weeks trying to wade through my psychology textbook, and that I performed much better in my chemistry exams than in my psychology exams, I concluded that, wise as the architects of the school curricula might have been, I had nevertheless been victimized by unwholesome scholastic policies.

Whay are liberal arts students not required to take science courses to achieve well rounded outlooks, especially in this technological age? Why aren't they at least required to acquaint themselves with the rudiments of the different scientific disciplines? How is a disinclination to a formal study of liberal arts a discredit to the emotional or intellectual vitality of an individual? Wouldn't science majors, infused with a curiousity for subjects extraneous to their scientific majors be better served by investigating these subjects at their discretion, rather than embarking them in tandem with their primary scientific pursuits?

I submit that the last thing we need in any initiative in aid of scientific advancement is liberal arts. Take care of the science and technology and liberal arts will take care of itself. Liberal arts is an expression of our innate natures as humans. Humans will eternally give expression to their inate proclivities, be they artistic or cultural. Humans requre no encouragement to explore their humanity therefore iberal arts should be restricted to the competence of students dedicated to their study. Science is too important to our country to be robbed of a concentrated focus.

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A functional Nigeria also need sociology, psychology, plus social psychology which is the study of how individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others. In Experiencing Nigeria at ..., by Halima Sadiya Mamud, she wished the young honest members of our generation more power to become free and responsible. How will we help the young acheive that wish? How do you equip the individual with what is necessary to be a productive member of society? Education.

And after the MBAs & PHds(no offence to the Author)? How about continual education of the Profound Knowledge type?

Set an example
Be a good listener
Continually teach other people
Help people to pull away from their current bad practice

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Naija for Life & Compatriots:


The history of science will tell you that science started as pure philosophy, purely with observations of the world around the philosopher, and coming up - first without experimentation - with arguments and counter-arguments about why what was is. Science as we know it became that when observations were coupled with experimentation and recordation, and requirements of repeatability and confirmation by independent sources.

Science and technology without a deep reflection of their consequences leads to fascism and other problems. Nazi Germany, and the Manhattan Project (leading to the development of the Atomic bomb) show that. Current discussions about the bio-ethics and religious issues surrouonding stem-cell research and abortion are cases in point.

I strongly believe that the liberal-arts - or humanities - should be taught in STEM-emphasis schools without drudgery, and with the mind that they are being taught to STEM students and not to humanities students. The problem is that in traditional institutions, the humanities are taught by professors hired to teach humanities students, who are then mixed in with STEM-inclined students.

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=Bolaji Aluko>
Science and technology without a deep reflection of their consequences leads to fascism and other problems. Nazi Germany, and the Manhattan Project (leading to the development of the Atomic bomb) show that. Current discussions about the bio-ethics and religious issues surrouonding stem-cell research and abortion are cases in point.

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Professor Aluko,

I am by no means suggesting that we shouldn't be mindful of potentially negative consequences of scientific or technological pursuits. I am just opposed to the assumption, implicit in the argument of the pro liberal arts crowd, that science majors require exposure to the liberal arts in order to make them "well rounded people", as if their lives would unfold in socially sterile cocoons otherwise. If ethics as they apply to science must be taught, then by all means, let us approach that as a course unto itself, and not try to impede conscientious science students in their studies. How, for instance, would dissertations on African literature, or meditations on the existentialist character of contemporary indigenous African art advance a mechanical engineer's efforts to determine whether a product should employ a chain or a belt drive, or whether it should incorporate ball or roller bearings? For this reason, I believe the students should conduct such explorations on their own volition.

On the other hand, I find your advocacy of a study of the ethics of scientific experimentation very laudable. However, I would prefer that these ethics were Nigeria-centric, or Afro-centric, and that they were formulated and discussed according as they affect Africans, with scientific experiments being adjudged virtuous or dastardly depending on whether they were expedient to or detrimental to Africa's interests. So the nuclear bomb, for example, while percieved in some quaters (and perharps by you if I interpreted your previous post correctly) to be undesirable, by my philosophy, would be quite outstanding if possessed by Africans, as that would endow us with an indomitable martial advantage. Therefore, in my book of ethics, a nuclear bomb would be a good thing if possesed by Africans, and a diabolical and apocalyptic entity otherwise. This last statement might not chime with your personal ideology, but I think if we Africans are going to get serious about science and technology, we must be cognizant of the Afro phobic world outside, and always seek, above all other priorities, those technological goals that will benefit us over and above outsiders.

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the world of content development is also part of the information age.And that is an area were Nigeria can make a lot of money.

We need to talk to people from other African countries when they get something right and learn what we can from them.

Who has the WILLINGNESS & ABILITY to bear the risk involved in working towards these goals? ..When tigers are satisfied with eating grass, wetin we want make goat do?

comprises a large number of eminent scientists and professionals

I vehemently oppose such a philosophy on the grounds that such practises only serve to dilute the focus of technically inclined students, and needlessly encumber them with disciplines immaterial to their careers....Nigeria needs science and technology and wagon loads of it.

indigenous African art advance a mechanical engineer's efforts to determine whether a product should employ a chain or a belt drive, or whether it should incorporate ball or roller bearings?

The history of science ...The problem is that in traditional institutions, the humanities are taught by professors hired to teach humanities students, who are then mixed in with STEM-inclined students.

in my book of ethics, a nuclear bomb would be a good thing if possesed by Africans, and a diabolical and apocalyptic entity otherwise

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Nigeria does not function and will not function until we find a little bit of ethics, morality and deep concern about order and relationships in a more productive and constructive way of life. We sit on 10% of world's oil and talk about making money, copying other African countries, me too, and eminent scientists and professionals (where are their people success stories in Africa?). We need BSc qualified brick layers but do they understand why quality bricks do not cost? It is not a question of either or, it is a combination of everything.

In my rants, I still maintain that after decades of PhDs and MBA, our people go back home to only love their own group. They have forgotten their "racist" experiences in the countries visited. Inaction and ineptitude coupled with the sickness of Tribalism have meant zero progress. Special prayers have become their mantra; they have forgotten to love all and serve all. Let us start with this type of education.