vicade:

My point is that naija peeps are saitsifed in reading reading just to pass. Japanese and indians read read read and become creative. In most naija universities, students read only to pass. I have had a japanese guy in my class challenge a professor on an issue. A typical naija peep will just nod head and accept.

Everyone needs to read but after reading what you do with such knowledge is what matters and that is where nigerians fall short and asians triumph. we read alot but we rarely create/imagine. Afterall, Imagination is greater than knowledge.

we don't imagine. Most Nigerians are just concerned about passing the exams and it is all over. Maybe it has to do with the backgorund of the nigerian educational system .

That, my friend , is not a problem of the students but rather the system which the students found themselves in.

The Nigerian educational system is set up in such a way that students have no other option than to cram , cram and then cram some more.

true, the student is not to blame if he isn't too knowledgeable, its the environment he has found himself in. i remember while in school, i use to 'read to know' while many of my classmates cramed to pass. imagine, even some of the olodo lecturers will demand u answer their questions just as its writen in the notes they gave. i was an above average student (g8tful 2 God 4 that),but my g8tst cehallenge was cramming to pass. it however pays to read to acquire knowledge, u'll be better for it. 

i refuse to believe nigerians are not imaginative.in the absence of an enabling enviroment like nigeria,what do u expect? yet,against all odds we triumph.abeg,nigerians are go-getters and can stand head to head on any field of endeavour.gbam

Quite feankly most Asian universities are very good. Take Indians with IT for instance they are wiz kids. But the fact is schooling entails more than going to class room, environment also matters.
Most of those Asian/Middle East countries are very volatile with all the bombs and missiles flying everywhere.

@OP

as a practicing engineer, i find these perceptions you have are NOT true. there is no such thing as one group of engineers being better than the other. you might have a larger number of indian engineers because of population but this has nothing to do with being better.

the singular most important factor in who the smartest engineers are is how old they were when they got interested in math, science, This is primarily the reason why kids raised in middle class white homes are still have the highest proportion inventions and techniques driving industry, even though they are a minority. OPPORTUNITY is the name of the game

Stop believing the hype. nigerian engineers are just as capable as asian engineers or any other group you mention. As for your assertion of israeli engineers being the best, this is funny. Iranian engineers/scientists are generally more accomplished than Israelis. everyone seems to have this mythical belief in israeli science, lol

As for the Asian education you mention, read some peer reviewed journals like IEEE and compare the quality of research and discoveries coming from 'top' schools in asia with 'average' schools in the US. It will change your mind.

For most of you guys to say that Asians dominate in Education is not true because I live in Boston, Massachusetts USA and I know some Asians that find it very difficult to understand some aspects of western Education. especially when they are not Bilingual, it really bring them down because of the language barrier. Even some Asian go to the extent of dropping out of school because he/she could not the pain of failing a certain subject. So to say Asians are the smartest is just funny. you guys shouldn't say that until you get to interact with some of them then you might change your opinion.
And also to say that Asians are 81% of MIT and Harvard that is just exaggeration because there are different kinds of people at Harvard and MIT. Last summer before I started my freshman year I took a class at Harvard and for most of you that think that to get in to Harvard you have to be smart that is a big fat lie because most of the people at Harvard, their parents are multi millionaires and billionaires, they contribute millions to make sure that their sons and daughters have the best professors teach their children what they(children) will never understand, even in a million years. To make it clear, most of the people that go to Harvard did not get in because of their grades and whatsoever, they got in because Harvard recognize the monetary standard of their parents. So for you guys to think the Asians are that smart you might have to take a summer class at Harvard like I did then you might learn some new things about the people you see there and how spoiled most of them are. THANK YOU.

@bobby16, very well said

btwthe indian education system is similar to the nigerian one, both models were inherited from the british. we tend to emphasize rote learning. For example we start solving complex calculus problems in SS1, like indians. Unfortunately, we can't apply the concepts to develop anything creative, sort of like putting the cart before the horse.

Americans don't start calculus until freshman year (sometimes sophomore). however, they learn the concepts and applications (3 semester's worth) and end up being much better at using calculus than the average indian or nigerian.

i am going to agree with bobby16

asians are not the smartest people. i am currently studying for a masters in international business and my class is as multi-cultural as they come (u can find someone from every continet in that class) and the smartest person is a kenyan, by a mile.

there are a bunch of indians and asians in my class but they have never struck me as exceptional in terms of intelligence. and also worthy of note is that we do a lot of group work and in most of them, the groups which is comprised primarily of africans usually emerge as the best.

it felt quite bad when we africans were underrated at the beginning of the course but further into the course, most of the lectureres had a change of heart. i had personally been told by a couple of my lectureres that i was a brilliant student (me that i barely graduated with a 2:2 less than 2 years ago form my school in nigeria).

the nigerian tetiary educational system does not allow for creativity. as a student, you are not encouraged to be creative in your school work, you have to put down what your lecturere has dictated or what is provided in the handouts, plus the presence of corruption makes matters worse. nigerian students are probably the most flexible, academically, they can adjust to any situation.

@ bobby64
concerning what u said about ivy league schools, i had that feeling too. i once asked a friend if the pre-requisite for getting into such schools most at times is your academic ability or your family wealth. cos most rich kids go to those schools and those kids dont strike me as smart.

I wish Nigerian Schools are this good too.

If you want to school in canada and you have the money, i mean you have the money, no money do not call me. 1 416 904 5008 . we may be able to help you verify if the school is real and that you are not been scam by other nigerian.

I'm not going to speak on Asian education system generally, but I have been opportuned to teach in the English Program in a Thai University as well as one or two high schools in Thailand. Right now, I teach Asian immigrants in Australia. What I have observed is that in Asian schools, they lay more emphasis on science and technology whereas in the American education system, students are encouraged to exchange their views, explore and discover their special talents. In India, Japan,South Korea and some other Asian schools, students are generally very serious and cooperative and the level of discipline is pretty high compared to the western schools.
I'd like to say here that if the likes of Thailand make the list of Asian education system being compared with western education, I say some Asian education systems are crap. In Thai schools for instance, students don't fail exams, especially in private schools. As a matter of fact, students don't have to go to school all they have to do is register and they pass automatically. I remember that a colleague of mine (a Japanese) resigned when he discovered that his results were altered on the computer (in a Thai school). Right now, I do not have Japanese students in my class, but I have a few Indians and other Asian students and they all operate on different levels with the Indians always on top even in other subjects.

First of all, Oluwaseun Osewa thanks for putting my topic for general discussion, i truly appreciate it.

@mr birdman
I am not going to argue with you that Nigerians engineers are just as good as engineers in the west and asia. Just go to a good and very reputable engineering university in the US, then come talk to me later. By the way, when i mean good i don't mean some Eastern Tenneese state university, Texas southern university, or south western montana state kind of university i mean the big boys like the Berkeley's, USC's, Urbana Champains, UMichigan's, UT Austin's, University of Chicago not to mention the ivy leagues.

@gabelogan
The asian students you are in class with are some of the worst of the worst students from there country but yet they are in the same class with you, most of this guys couldn't even get into any university back home but were smart enough to pass the GMAT or the GRE and are in the same class with you, that is a testament of how excellent there educational system is

@bobby16
You are right that you have to be rich to go to those schools but most of the asian kids who go there are not, and yet got there the hard way, by simply being geniuses. Afterall, this are the guys who went to Indian Institute of Technology or Tsing hua University (this are the MIT's and Caltech's of Asia) you think say na joke to go those schools?
Yes i know English is usually there problem, but imagine you or an american going to South korea to take engineering classes in Advanced korean, yet for this asian kids, the fact that they struggle with English doesn't deter them from cleaning up the competition. If you think i am lying just go to California, the ASIANS DOMINATE THE HIGH TECH INDUSTRY over there and its not even close. In fact there is a popular saying in Southern california that Sillicon Valley was built on ICP's (not integrated circuit processors but Indians, Chinese and Pakistani's). This is the reason why the state of California has the sixth largest economy in the world (yes a single state, not even a country). The fact that we are even sitting in class with the worst asian students or even comparing them with us says a lot about them.

On a side note, if the Asians are not that smart then why is it that there countries developed over a few decades while it took America over 300 years to become a developed nation. Japan was leveled after WWII but by the 80's they were ready to compete with the Americans. Same goes for Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia et al. What they have accomplished is astounding, there cars are about to put American cars out of business, there electronics are the best, in fact, America gets most of its high tech manufacturing from Asia because the asians do it better and for less so keep decieving yourselves about the myth of the west, if india and China can develop and educate there population, GAME'S OVER.

@candy
you are right on that, asian schools are more pragmatic, they realise that for there countries to develop or catch up with the west, they have to place emphasis on science and mathematics, not spending millions of dollars on the art programs, philosophy or the theology departments that's a waste of money. This is the reason why the Americans are alarmed right now. Bill Gates and other prominent industrialists have been testifying in congress that very soon the competition from the far east is catching up meanwhile majority of Americans want to explore there "special talents". In China, Bill Gates is an icon but in America Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson is there own icon. Some parents are pissed of that they have to pay higher property taxes in American high schools to keep the music department going on as if they are going to eat music. Imagine Cambridge and Oxford university has an entire department studying "classics" and they spend millions of dollars to keep this departments going and they wonder why they have not come up with anything innovative in the fields of science and technology. Is the study of Russian philosophy going to tackle problems we have on earth today like slowing down global warming, curing AIDS, making us energy dependent? I think not.

Another problem with western universities especially the MIT's and the Caltech's is that they spend billions of dollars on research of absolutely meaningless and abstract things that have almost no application in the real world like planetoids, asteroids. the formation of snowflakes, kuiper's belt and the black hole (who knows wether it even exists sef ) instead of focusing on real world problems like curing cancer. That's why there research budget are so over bloated and there rankings in the world are so high and the rest of us are like , wow.
Another weakness in there university system is that there proffessors are so pre-occupied with research rather than there students, they don't spend one on one with there students with dire consequences.

On a side note, if Nigeria wants to catch up with this guys, its universities better focus on mathematics and science. As far as i am concerned all federal universities should only have a school of engineering and a school of medicine (it only cost 120 million dollars to start a world class medical school). They should scrap out all unnecessary majors like philosophy, forestry, theatre arts, university studies and other unnecessary majors that's how some of the best universities even in america or asia started, they mostly started out focusing on most things they needed like agriculture, engineering and millitary science then decades later they added other "special talent majors" . All the "special talents" and arts are to be studied in private schools and not with govt funding as Africa has so many needs and studying the history of Nok culture is not going to solve them. To put it point blank, if you want to study typewriting or international relations go to a private university.

@davidif its funny you sound like that saying imaging that I go to south Korea or whatever to take a class in Engineering. the reason I replied you is that I am actually a Chemical Enigeering student and I don't find anything about Engineering scary. It's very apalling to me because i believe that I can take any course or whatsoever that comes my way. So to say that I would find it challenging to take a class in South Korea is just funny because whichever method they use to teach over there would definitely be different and also I don't see any reason why I wouldn't excel if I put my mind in to it.

davidif:

@mr birdman
I am not going to argue with you that Nigerians engineers are just as good as engineers in the west and asia. Just go to a good and very reputable engineering university in the US, then come talk to me later. By the way, when i mean good i don't mean some Eastern Tenneese state university, Texas southern university, or south western montana state kind of university i mean the big boys like the Berkeley's, USC's, Urbana Champains, UMichigan's, UT Austin's, University of Chicago not to mention the ivy leagues.

uhh i went to a top 5 engineering university. i maintain you don't know what you are talking about. Instead of working on conjecture, why don't you do a little research on where the bulk of patents are coming from and who the heavy hitters are in industry. anytime i hear someone praise asian education like its a holy grail, i realise they don't know what they are talking about.

You think its by accident that the best asians prefer to come school in the US and then go back home and become the sh^^. EVEN leading indian engineers acknowledge that in term of IP and R&, india is still 20-25 years behind the US.

davidif:

Another problem with western universities especially the MIT's and the Caltech's is that they spend billions of dollars on research of absolutely meaningless and abstract things that have almost no application in the real world like planetoids, asteroids. the formation of snowflakes, kuiper's belt and the black hole (who knows wether it even exists sef ) instead of focusing on real world problems like curing cancer. That's why there research budget are so over bloated and there rankings in the world are so high and the rest of us are like , wow.
Another weakness in there university system is that there proffessors are so pre-occupied with research rather than there students, they don't spend one on one with there students with dire consequences.

the meaningless research of the last century is the foundation of technology today. all the crazy, useless research german engineers did during WW2 and bell labs scientists did in the early 50s gave rise to cell phones, internet,

as for asian school being pragmatic, sigh. the closest to being pragmatic are the japanese, because yhey model their system to the american one. even then,they still have a rigid work culture. the average asian engineer works almost twice as long (sleep in office sometimes) and accomplish significantly less

gabe_logan:

i am going to agree with bobby16

asians are not the smartest people. i am currently studying for a masters in international business and my class is as multi-cultural as they come (u can find someone from every continet in that class) and the smartest person is a kenyan, by a mile.

there are a bunch of indians and asians in my class but they have never struck me as exceptional in terms of intelligence. and also worthy of note is that we do a lot of group work and in most of them, the groups which is comprised primarily of africans usually emerge as the best.

it felt quite bad when we africans were underrated at the beginning of the course but further into the course, most of the lectureres had a change of heart. i had personally been told by a couple of my lectureres that i was a brilliant student (me that i barely graduated with a 2:2 less than 2 years ago form my school in nigeria).

the nigerian tetiary educational system does not allow for creativity. as a student, you are not encouraged to be creative in your school work, you have to put down what your lecturere has dictated or what is provided in the handouts, plus the presence of corruption makes matters worse. nigerian students are probably the most flexible, academically, they can adjust to any situation.

@ bobby64
concerning what u said about ivy league schools, i had that feeling too. i once asked a friend if the pre-requisite for getting into such schools most at times is your academic ability or your family wealth. because most rich kids go to those schools and those kids don't strike me as smart.

Chairman, I beg if u dont mind which school are u attending? Im having problem with my admissions cos I finished with a 2:2!

@ Mekk. Well, if u say it's easier said, so be it. As a man thinks in his heart so is he.

the differenc between EAst and West is mindset nothing else. If you are looking for Academic challenges, Asia will work. If you are looking for a system that allows you be creative and process your own thoughts, the west is the answer. Go figure how the Facebooks, and Microsofts of the world came out of America. America educational systemencourages you to use ur mind, and not just regurgitate what thye teach u in the class.

it is not that Nigerians are not imaginative, or are genetically Challenged and cursed with a bankruptcy of the mind. The Nigerian society/ environment doesnt encourage it. it is the current generation that is starting to rebel against it.
IT IS WELL! as long as pple lose the Doctor, Eng, Acct, & lawyer only mentality, then a lot of things will happen.

I prefer Asian education based on there high technology but the problem is language

I prefer Asian education based on there high technology development but the problem is there language

there are lots of brains in Naija, give them the enabling environment and see what they can do, what would u expect of a student in the lecture room with an empty stomach.

Ess:

Chairman, I beg if u don't mind which school are u attending? I'm having problem with my admissions because I finished with a 2:2!

there are loads of schools in the UK that will take you with your 2:2. i had problems gaining admission into most of the "top" schools because they said they take only 2:1 but most intermediate schools will take you.

univerisity of luton
coventry university
goldsmiths university
greenwich university
warwick university (not really sure about that one)
university of leeds
middlesex university
london south bank university
university of huddersfield
university of bolton
cardiff university

the list is almost endless, just try any of em

@ovadose

as long as people lose the Doctor, Eng, Acct, & lawyer only mentality, then a lot of things will happen

No, i don't agree with your comments, as a developing nation, we strongly need scientists, especially doctors and engineers. Nigeria has the lowest engineer per capita of any third world country and we have an enormous shortage of doctors that's why we have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. If you read my posts, you would realize that there is no such thing as too much doctors and too much engineers. That's why i proposed that our educational system needs to be more pragmatic by focusing education strictly on science and technology. All federal universities should solely be focused on nothing else but science and technology, if you want to study something else then go to a private university, the fed govt. shouldn't be wasting money on unnecessary ventures. The rich nations like the US or England can afford to spend millions of dollars on liberal arts colleges but poor upstart countries who need to develop should not. This is how the asian countries developed and not by spending millions on the department of literature and philosophy. The educational system should be set up to tackle the present problems of our society and not focusing on so called "special talents" like music and theatre arts.

Another important point is that we need to integrate creativity into our science cirriculums. Instead of forcing this kids to cram for exams or go for JET competition, or heck, even inter-house sports, we need to introduce science fairs in primary schools up and secondary schools, where each semester, a student is assigned a project to invent something and introduces it in a science fair, this should make science and mathematical classes much fun, replace inter-house sports. This would make our students more creative and innovative, so that by the time they get to the universities they would well rounded and excellent scientists. This is how even America did it and became number 1 in the world.

@bobby16
I meant language wise not engineering wise. Its challenging for this guys to take classes in languages that are foreign to them, yet they still excel.
Also, on your point that israeli scientist are overrated, how come Iran is still way underdeveloped despite the fact that they have better scientists? Israeli's are way underhyped if you ask me, how did a country in a desert surrounded by saltwater develop into an economic and technological power during a short period of time. They have one of the best, if not the best electrical engineering and computer science facilities in the world, in fact, everything from your Instant messenger to the SCUD missiles you see on TV everyday was made by them. Even the US is in partnership with them when it comes to millitary engineering.

@coopedro

I LOVE MY FATHER LAND.

WHO GO BETTER GO BETTER even IF YOU ASIA OR LONDON.
WE STILL HAVE GENIUS IN NAIJA.

JUST Believe IN YOURSELF.

My good friend, believing in yourself is not enough. Trust me, if you have the opportunity to go to a world class engineering university you would realize that.

@ Candy

Guys quite sorry for the digression , How would you rate the educational system in Australia ? Atleast in comparison with the west . Which will u prefer of - University of Sydney and ANU having information technology in mind.

Before we make a comparison of the Nigerian tertiary educational system, we should trace it roots. University education was
started during British colonial rule for the purpose of training people to become civil servants in the colonial government or
management trainees in multinational companies like UAC, Lever Brothers(Unilever) and Cadbury.

University education was not created to enforce self-confidence the student's African identity.

University Education was not started to empower the student to engage in a process of enquiry that will lead to a self-sustaining
interactive development with the environment. The student was not expected to come out of school to compete in extracting wealth from nature.

Please, I would like to ask someone who has an understanding of the advertising industries a question. Why was advertising so dull until South African companies came into the scene? It appears that the creative content used to be very minimal.

@jantavanta
Nigerian journalism is focused on sobriety and not sensationalism, partly because it is owned by the govt. Now if it were a corporate owned entity where the owners would love to make a profit, they would look for creative means to get the product out there, including using sexual images and anything that captures the humans imagination.

@davidif

I assume the term "journalism" refers to the print and tv broadcasting media. The private tv broadcasters do not have as much audience as the government broadcaster. There are lots of newspapers and magazines that are privately owned. I do not know if there is still any newspaper that is government-owned. A lesson has been learnt from the collapse of the Daily Times Group as a result of its takeover by government.

Please do you mean government-controlled journalism preventing the creative means to get the product out there?

The educational system or rather, the [i]examination [/i]system, was not designed to make people creative.
It was designed to induce sobriety that was needed by law-and-order colonialism of an european military dictatorship.

I would like us to discuss , if the rampant white-collar religious fundamentalism that has taken over the intellectual space of Nigerian universities, has contributed to the apparent creative inability of a Nigerian student.

Are universities in asian and western countries bastions of rationality? If Nigeria is to have an applied scientific culture, would the resulting metaphysical mindset of graduate of a nigerian tertiary institution be a blockade in technological creativity?

@jantavanta

I would like us to discuss , if the rampant white-collar religious fundamentalism that has taken over the intellectual space of Nigerian universities, has contributed to the  apparent creative inability of a Nigerian student.

The only reason why the Nigerian student is not creative has nothing to do with religion but with lack of vision of our leaders on the matter of education. For example, all it takes to create a world class medical school is 120 million dollars. 20 mill. for the faculty and 100 mill for the hospital but we would rather spend the money on Tinapa despite the fact that the naija has an acute shortage of doctors leading to a high infant mortality rate. Mega powerful companies like Amgen and Genentech were started by college proffessors in the US, now they are multi-billion dollar corporations with over ten thousand employees, yet, the Nigerian govt. cannot see the emphasis of education. What a shame, i read in the Guiness book of records some time ago that Nigeria was the second lowest in the world in terms of spending on Education (we spend 0.6% of our GNP on education meanwhile we allocated a lot more to Agriculture and paying the bureaucracy e.g govs, sen., and perm. sec.), in fact, only war torn Liberia was ahead of us. The truth of the matter is that the more money you invest in your educational sector, the more you reap and THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION.