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Evolving An Education System | Engr. Robinson Tombari Sibe MNSE | TEDxPortHarcourt


[Applause]
good evening gentlemen and ladies or
ladies and gentlemen I’m here to talk
about evolving an educational system
that tells us basic national and
industrial questions now one of those
who believed that education should not
be a fit for our purpose it should not
be a template that must work in China
and most work in Nigeria or work in
Taiwan and all that nations should
evolve educational systems as their
challenges evolves just like when the
British came into Nigeria they looked at
the system what were the immediate
challenges they needed to settle they
needed to solve the problem of raising a
quick manpower quick manpower for the
public sector the military’s leaders
they needed to raise administrators they
also needed to make you think in a
certain way so they introduced causes
like civics and government because they
tactically wanted to disintegrate and
make you you know not see values or see
see sense in your traditional systems so
they they introduced crosses like
government so that you begin to see
their democracy they tell you about you
know suppression and power of course but
they don’t know in my community there’s
actually separation of paths in Bordeaux
but because they wanted you to think in
a certain way they teach you history so
you learned their own history not
history of a problem not history of
Bordeaux so education has to answer
questions they had a strategic plan and
they decided to execute it that way now
what have we done when they left in 1960
things are changed things are evolved
but we fail to evolve the systems to
answer those burning questions you can
tell me today that the problems of 1960
are still the same problems today no
things have changed but our occasional
systems had remained essentially rooted
in their cake system when the British
came in here now but when we move on and
when we look at an Internet the
circumstances and interrogate issues
before us we realize that this void can
never be filled
unless we consciously decide to rework
our systems to answer these questions
these questions that are burning today
these questions of environmental
pollution this question of unemployment
and these questions that are bound in
today’s society now let’s look at the
origins of knowledge knowledge the body
of knowledge essentially started out as
philosophy and philosophy everybody was
you know you knew archeology you knew
everything if you are a philosopher and
then with further advancements and
further you know research things like
physics broke out chemistry mathematics
and the likes
but again as specializations continue at
things like engineering which was
essentially the application of these
physical sciences and then again there
were further you know disaggregation and
further separation and so engineering
which was military engineering by the
way now became civilian engineering
which is civil engineering essentially
and then we had electrical and the likes
so the body of knowledge has been you
know together
but today we are witnessing what I call
the reconvergence of knowledge through
multidisciplinary collaborations in
order to you you have disciplines such
as mechatronics which is essentially
diffusion of mechanical and electronics
what our system remains deeply rooted in
that a cake system that sees you box in
a particular realm and I’m going to use
myself as an example recently I got
admitted to do a ph.d program for
geomatics and when they read my bio you
didn’t hear any geomatics degree in
Nigerian nobody agreed to employ me
because I don’t have genetics degree or
Sophie which is what we call it here I
don’t have it in first degree and have
it in second degree so what did I do
I tried I didn’t see anywhere and I
looked elsewhere and guess what the
problem honored to answer was a Niger
Delta problem a Nigerian problem but I
had to go outside to get admission to
study a course to solve problems here
now this is the same
person who had been doing dramatics for
over a decade but you need to you know
look at systems that actually look at
value over phone and you know we’ve been
able to design a lot of applications and
all that when you leave school you need
to unlearn a lot of things you need to
realize that what you need to survive
out there is not essentially you know
the common criminal formula which you do
in school to actually face issues to
actually look at solutions you need to
read up a lot of things these are books
I bought you know to solve problems in
public health I’ve worked with public
health teams have worked with
electricians have rocket you know
hydrographic and hydraulic engineers and
all that that is the future and that’s
the present actually of knowledge where
there’s a lot of multidisciplinary
collaborations but in Nigeria we still
get stuck in that box so educational
system should be hotbed of innovation
things should actually every innovation
should actually come out of a very
educational institution for example we
talked about you know in the fifth in
this particular Republic I think
sometime in the 2000 and also we had a
gas turbine now I would have expected
that such an innovation we started in
the university community because that’s
where you have most of the microgrids in
the world you know u.s. is practically
leaning on an IO since friends and that
IOC has an independent path they could
have collaborated with them to solve
their problem that’s one option
second option is probably in the next
slide you’re going to see the map
showing the pipelines and that pipeline
the gas pipeline is actually not too far
from unipod so they could have actually
built a turbine a gas turbine that could
get gas from there at a cost effective
level but they didn’t do that again
innovation has to be you know something
that answers sorry these innovations had
to come from universities and tertiary
institutions to answer these questions
but every time we pass on this
opportunity let me give you another
example in my undergraduate days I read
computer engineering first degree and
every single year from when I was in
year one they were doing a particular
thesis over and over again and that’s
the design of exams and record
management system
time thinks don’t manually and I asked
myself you’re doing this thing every
year and somebody gets an A for each yet
next door they are still clean results
manually if you cannot apply this
problem next door thesis should actually
be things lashes solve problems real
problems not to cramp formula you know
and all that so but they pass on this
opportunity you know I’ll give you
another yet another example of her
system actually strangulate creatives
and how they don’t like innovation as a
kid in protocols in practices to
precisely I used to represent my school
you know in increase in jet squeeze and
order so I represented them in projects
so what I did that here was a super high
tarragon transmitter by the way I didn’t
– it was a team and collective effort
super I did the presentation and the man
who was the external supervisor he
didn’t understand what we did a little
transmitter that you know transmitted
radio signals and it gets received you
know a few distances is something not
too far away by the way I hear us he has
a trance radio station and I’m supposed
to expect that if they are doing the
right thing that transmitter and the
whole system should have been built by
the telecommunication department because
that’s how they get the experience so
they don’t go out to be looking forward
to do IT when there’s an opportunity for
the telecommunications engineer to land
on right there on campus so this this
invigilator you know he told me he
looked at it he didn’t know what to ask
you know he had a PhD in physics and he
asked me I should write the formula for
react capacitive reactance I wrote when
I got it was the function of a diode
those are textbook questions and I told
him for rectification they looked at it
you said I’m not convinced the question
they couldn’t ask so because he could
not ask and because he did not
understand that he didn’t cause very
well we came third I think but I was
just a crime a crime was that we decided
to do something
disruptive we decided to do something
that he could not understand so
essentially this is how we box creatives
this is how we strangle you know when
you want to solve problems and you
choose not to do things their way they
you know they look at ways to get you
down our system must be able to address
this now
we need also fund research there’s a key
problem here just as alabaugh was really
not where we don’t fund research if you
look at the metrics if there’s a table
right on your screen should be on your
screen next Estonia Estonia is
essentially the size of Fargo and
Obama’s essentially for talk of
metropolis in terms of population
Estonia spends five hundred and eleven
million dollars that is more than half I
think almost half of river state budget
on research and that little nation
that’s why they call them they like
point at them as you know a classic
example of how a nation can actually use
ICT to affect their macroeconomic in all
policies and all of that
Estonia a couple of years ago two
decades ago had only a few landlines
today Internet access is a fundamental
human right in Estonia because they are
committing so much to research if you
also look at in terms of number of
research personnel for every one
thousand research personnel a country
like Israel has 1717 research personnel
for every one thousand employees can we
look compare that with what we have back
here probably a million to one so we
need to fund research and nothing we
need to look at is you know we need to
answer questions questions that are
bound questions around the sport
occurred questions your questions and
what are these questions floating we are
confronted with flawed how have we
funded research to solve these problems
because these are multi disciplinary
problems that we can solve we can
assemble teams
how have we structured our system Russ
talked about a kilo and
when the set of UST this they were very
smart they try to answer questions at
that time there was an emerging industry
petrochemical industry and so the USD
was I think the first University to have
a Cosmo chemical petrochemical
engineering they were the first
University in Nigeria to have what from
marine engineering because they look at
the local environment and see that we
have a lot of seas and all of that you
need to phone areas specifically that
answers basic national questions basic
issues basically you catch a low-hanging
fruits as a state he don’t go funding
you know a space project in a state that
is struggling or in a country that is
struggling with power and also we often
we need to look at you know imagine
trends you cannot have a department I
came from in a computer engineering and
I did basic and Fortran at the time at
the time basic and Fortran in the
industry was already obsolete and Visual
Basic was out there they refused to
teachers visual C++ was out there they
refused teachers practical extraction
report languages I used all of this for
my project and I almost had issues with
them because they wanted me to do
CLS to clear screen they wanted me to
run my program essentially on a door
screen which was what we were running
and we’d learned to be complete as we
study to be called computer engineers
without computers so for those of us
that you know they felt knows this
programming when they give us
assignments they come to my room
and a few of us and said I have me
checking distance running and I look at
it majestical and say inaugural mass to
say go hang here now recently we had the
news of you know cut cut real estate and
a couple of other states and time passed
that actually set exams for teachers
it’s I don’t expect anything less
it’s a recent survey that was done just
about 900,000 students a little around
that rates teachers in the primary
education only 357,000 we actually
qualified with an NC
and then 500 plus which is about 12
twice of that number did not even have
an and see that he wants now I’m not
talking about private schools public
schools that the ones teaching our
children so why would they fail exams so
we need to educate we also had they also
educated people who are box in the hours
there was a lecturer not in my
department who used to say box the
answer so he start smacking from the
answer once you fail the answer you
failed almost half of the max he doesn’t
care if you followed the method she’s
more interested in you know approach if
you approximated rightly and wrongly
that’s not how to teach people so we
need to evolve our systems to answer
these basic national questions higher
educational curriculum solving problems
you know when they say we the Eureka
moment which was essentially at the
point of discovery of the principles of
flotation and all that demand could not
have jumped out of the bathtub naked and
swimming Eureka if he did not solve a
problem he solved a problem that’s why
you could jump out I’ve been to the
Smithsonian Museum for and space and I
saw the original write machine and I
could relate with the problem I could
relate to the problem is solved at the
time because when you see the bare bones
you understand what I say first
principles but here we essentially just
chalk people up and then we teach them
to draw with Roger and pencils and
t-square whereas you could as well teach
me
AutoCAD because I’m never going to use
t-square magic me going to work on a
clarity square and drain port I’m going
to work whereas you could have us you
could have taught me then when I was
back in school
AutoCAD was already doing well in the
industry but rather than teachers that
we spent three semesters learning how to
draw with pencil rotary and pestle and
t-square so basically we need to also
think about using our educational system
to solve macroeconomic problems because
I gave the example to earlier of Estonia
Estonia’s the little country as little
as the earth
been able to use the education to solve
problems and what a critical problem
today unemployment how do we create
people who even while they’re in school
already collaborating already solving
problems already you know looking at
things from the real industry
perspectives not you know coming
formulas and then you get an A and all
that we need to promote collaborations
collaborations with multidisciplinary
teams collaborations with the industry
and the educational system needs to be
structured at that level to promote
promote this and I’m going to give him a
particular example as a university in
the UK somewhere in the UK they try to
entrench this collaborative spirits so
what they do every year they bring a
project and they give you a budget and
they give you a timeline in this
particular year they ask them to do an
autonomous floor cleaning robot and they
gave them the budget of 200 pounds and
they put up did you up their team won
from mechanical one from electrical one
from electronics on a project manager
and you essentially supposed to design
this but in design image you don’t just
design you start by doing it the way you
are going to do it outside you start by
doing what is Safi because you are
selling it to people so they do the
details of it and from that survey they
knew what their users wanted and then
they set out to implement their design
now after designing you don’t stop there
because you have to market them so they
had to brand them we had to I’m sure one
of the pictures would have showed you
Robo tech the call it Robo tech does
their brand and then be called the
product Klim Pro so when they did all of
this is to encourage that spirit of
multidisciplinary collaborations and
they didn’t stop there at the end of the
project they call the local community
university community and people in the
neighboring community to try to market
that product because that is what
obtains in the real world now another
thing we need to look at is how to use
education can begin to recalibrate the
minds of our youth how we need to use
education to rebuild those structures
which the colonial masters wanted us to
bring down
if you a few weeks ago my little
daughter
I saw her dress she was going to school
and she was dressed like a cowboy and I
asked what’s this and she said it’s
Yankee Doodle deep and I said Yankee in
Niger Delta yeah she didn’t understand
give a high five and I took pictures
with her Yankee Doodle day in in in
Niger Delta when when when I we have in
the cantata upper body or sano-kun Amana
we have in Berube Dee because I
essentially don’t know what message
you’re trying to pass through so I will
not take much of your time because we
already you know husband we need an
educational system that answers basic
questions we need collaborations we need
educational systems that answers basic
macroeconomic questions questions like
you know like the modular refining I
expect us t-to paeonia a model because
it’s essentially fractional distillation
which they’ve been teaching since the
school started so you can do a model and
pioneer model that’s cost effective so
that the local technicians out there or
one eventually they decide to start to
give this licenses they will realize
that we have our own homegrown solution
and it’s working that’s the kind of
educational systems which I expect not
that which you know you have to plant
these certificates and all of that and
before I finish I want to ask everybody
here one lastly use your certificates
maybe a few of you would say yesterday
or day before you applied for a job
because you’re still in the labor market
I can’t remember when I used mine but
when was the last time I used my
knowledge and what I have learned I’m
using it now so that’s what we need to
begin to look at to solve problems to
equip ourselves for the world outside we
need to sit down
bring down pull down this thing we call
educational system and walk out our
system that answers the questions of now
and looks forward into the next 50 years
thank you and God bless
you
[Applause]
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