eleojo23:
There is no better way to grow as a country than to encourage young people with potentials.
Encouraging talent not just in entertainment but in every form is the key to building a great nation with a bright future.
Our future is in danger if all we can boast of is young people singing and dancing on stage alone. Young people should be encouraged to go into research and engage their power of imagination to solve problems. What we have on ground now that even professors are not adequately motivated to do research is not good. A great nation is built deliberately by taking appropriate actions to achieve the desired result.

celeron40:
I couldn't agree more..Most youths today are interested primarily in entertainment..I was asking my niece who is in her second year in a Fed. University what she thinks about the crisis in Ukraine..she replied "What crisis?" The level of ignorance is baffling..This country will not crawl out of the abyss we are basking in now until the youths begin to make a difference..We have the brains..Most of my friends who were opportuned to have their M.Sc degrees from foreign Universities, all topped their classes..The average young Nigerian is so shallow minded, conversations with them will drift towards disgust..Its not about "catching them young" in the sense of it, but a revolution of young minds.

omongbatim:
Lol! What others call brain drain is brain mine for America.

Plus, Nigeria is well aware of the concept of catching them young, but like everything else, she is yet to harness it to achieve maximum effect.

Fortissimo:
Hello astrodome. What field of scientific research were/are you involved in?

Fortissimo:
Hello astrodome. What field of scientific research were/are you involved in?

astrodome:
How America gets it right by catching them young

Many people have often wondered how America is such a great country. There are many things that America does ‘‘righter’’ than other countries in the world. One of them is the phenomenon of assimilating the best brains from all over the world (if you have a good education, a good work experience, and has something to offer, America would be interested in keeping you- folks call it brain drain) and the other is catching them young. These two phenomena have made America both the source and sink for brain power that would take years and years of hard work to match. In this presentation, I will dwell on the concept of catching them young, using an example from my own past work at University of Utah (UT).

If you are a university professor of any ranking (assistant, associate, or full), in the United States, I am sure you would have received letters from persons, requesting to intern or work in your lab, often without pay. ‘‘We just need that lab work experience’’ such letter would often end up with. Well, while serving as a Research Assistant Professor at UT, a position I held until last March, I had the opportunity to receive many of such letters. Two of them came from two very interesting sources: Tommy Fang and Jean-Luc Watson. These two names you will find in the accompanying photos. Tommy is an American of Chinese origin and Jean-Luc is an American of French descent. So, what made Tommy and Jean-Luc interesting for me? They were just high school (secondary school equivalent) students.

When I received their letters I thought to myself ‘‘what would these young kids do in my research? They will just be a drag on me’’. So I consulted a senior colleague, a full professor, Anne Anderson (also named in the photos) and she told me ‘‘duh!! We get these letters from high schoolers nearly every day. Just decide whether you want to have them or not’’. At that time I already had two university undergraduate students working in the lab, so I was not really ready to have the place clogged up with extras. But I thought, well, let me give them a try, it’s pay-free, after all. So I invited them over and when they came, I informed them that before having them in the lab, I would test them by giving them scientific papers to take home with, read and come discuss their understanding of the paper, next time. In addition to that test, they would, of course, undergo the mandatory laboratory training session which every new worker in American university labs undergo. Within two days, they came back and were ready to discuss. I was expecting some oral discussions, but they both had prepared PowerPoint slides from their papers. I was awed by their understanding of the subjects that I had no reason not to accept them - without pay, of course.

Cutting a long story short, Tommy and Jean-Luc worked with me and other colleagues for nearly a year. They would come in after their classes and work through the early evenings. Sometimes in the weekends they would come in to take data and do other measurements. Remember they did all this without pay. The product of their work are the two peer reviewed scientific publications exhibited in the photos. As teenagers, they already have scientific publications to their names, more so as first authors. Wow!!. Both of these guys have since graduated from high school, and on the strength of their individual brilliance, and supported by the recommendation letters we wrote for them as research mentors, they are now in top-short universities with scholarships, studying different scientific courses. You can only imagine what these kids would become in future. They got their scientific groove early. During the duration of their stay, we received another student, a Native American high school student, who came all the way from New York to work with us for 6 months.

These examples are snippets of how America gets its greatness going. It is traditional for young high school students to want to conduct actual research work in the area of scientific interest to their future. It was only strange to me because I had not had that experience (with high school students, I mean) before then. Before coming to America, I had been in laboratory settings for a considerable number of years in Nigeria, Belgium and Germany, and never, ever did I experience such zeal to engage at that early stage in life. This is a good lesson for developing countries such as Nigeria to learn from. The pool of brain power would always come from the young, not the aging or aged. Nigeria needs to start getting it right by creating the environment and culture where young students would become interested and motivated to pursue scientific and technological skills acquisition at the stage of their lives where they are most impressionable.

Nigeria needs to get her educational laboratories up and running again, and there should be schemes that connect basic academic pursuits to practical orientations, even from the secondary education level. Nigeria needs to start catching them young. While this may already be happening in elite private schools attended by the kids of the rich, high and mighty, it should be a routine for every kid. Brilliance and intelligence often come from economically emasculated minds.

celeron40:
I couldn't agree more..Most youths today are interested primarily in entertainment..I was asking my niece who is in her second year in a Fed. University what she thinks about the crisis in Ukraine..she replied "What crisis?" The level of ignorance is baffling..This country will not crawl out of the abyss we are basking in now until the youths begin to make a difference..We have the brains..Most of my friends who were opportuned to have their M.Sc degrees from foreign Universities, all topped their classes..The average young Nigerian is so shallow minded, conversations with them will drift towards disgust..Its not about "catching them young" in the sense of it, but a revolution of young minds.

astrodome:


The people's power can make the change. The first thing would be voting for the proper persons who have the vision to change the system. One way to ensure this is for Nigerians at home to strongly advocate for the inclusion of Nigerians abroad into the voting system. Their 17 million votes can help to elect the right candidates to make needed changes. Diasporan Nigerians wear the shoes, and so know where they pinch (so to speak).

sinkhole:
Nigeria is a bloody dream killer, elders will always kill the dreams of the young ones!

sultaan:
Now I was told recently that if you have all five credits required for admission into a university/course of first and second choice and your UME score is higher than the cut off. You are still not guaranteed an admission into the university. Now how is that not destroying the young people when they know all you need is to pay your way or know people in life.

In my lifetime I have seen heaven turn to hell Now the youths think it is impossible to have admission to two universities at same time

Dollyak:
This is one of the few things dear to me. I hate our dependency on natural resources. Nigeria should be targeting a technological-production based economy rather than natural resources based.. The former earn you a lot more money, ask south Korea with Samsung.

sultaan:
Hey Doc,

If I take on a couple of kids to train for free or give them some class guns and stick to go win an election for me so we can share the ECA who h do you think is more beneficial.

Sound stupid but it e,plains Nigeria

okotv:
welcome to Nigeria...in as much as we tend to be ignorant of some things, we have brains trying and ready to work but where are the tools, no standard lab to practice, admission into tertiary institutions are a miracle, poor road network, fetish beliefs in rural areas, stomach infrastructure, bad governance, religious fanatics, the list is endless...infact let me just watch and see...as for me, I must make a change in this country whether am recognised or not...after all starting a little somewhere is the way to go.

mikolo80:
What do you produce or manufacture as an example to others or are you all hat and no cattle

mikolo80:
Then you never had much of a dream to begin with.a bad workman blames his tools.

sinkhole:
Alright, let us see where your own dreams will/have legitimately taken you in Nigeria!

Dollyak:

is that relevant to the discussion? Be intelligent for once.