₦airaland Forum

EZEIGBO1OFIMO:
a lot of biographies and pre-civil war writings shows that a lot of Nigerians drifted more towards the arts and humanities, the few in the sciences were almost all gone by the end of babangida's SAP. A simple example, that I want to give is the International Mathematics Olympiad; save for south Africa and North Africa that fields white contestants, No african country has won a single medal except for Nigeria's not so deserved bronze medal in '11(dude answered only one question, the easiest). These students are supposedly picked through rigorous competition and are given hard core math drills, yet for some reason they are never able to answer one single question at the IMO. The situation becomes worse in the international Physics Olympiad where all the African contestants routinely score zero. Same story in the ICho, The informatics Olympiad. The situation is aptly described in Feynman's memoir when he visited Brazil and complained that not a single person was learning science there even though they excelled in class. The average African, save for a few like you , have not and will never know the joys of science. it's somehow not just in most of us.

I can easily explain why we never do well at the IMO because I first saw the questions when I was at Secondary school and also couldn't solve a full question. Look at our foremost math competition in Nigeria: Cowbell. It's basically EASY plug and play speed math. Nothing more. It doesn't involve any complex problem solving skill. And I watched a movie about the training of kids for the IMO. I assure you, there's not a SINGLE secondary school teacher that can teach our kids number theory and the likes that's a necessary pre-requisite to solve most IMO level problems.

The reason we perform so poorly at the IMO is simply because we have no one to teach our kids the tools needed to solve those kinda problems. It's nothing intrinsic. That I am 100% sure of.

EZEIGBO1OFIMO:
a lot of biographies and pre-civil war writings shows that a lot of Nigerians drifted more towards the arts and humanities, the few in the sciences were almost all gone by the end of babangida's SAP. A simple example, that I want to give is the International Mathematics Olympiad; save for south Africa and North Africa that fields white contestants, No african country has won a single medal except for Nigeria's not so deserved bronze medal in '11(dude answered only one question, the easiest). These students are supposedly picked through rigorous competition and are given hard core math drills, yet for some reason they are never able to answer one single question at the IMO. The situation becomes worse in the international Physics Olympiad where all the African contestants routinely score zero. Same story in the ICho, The informatics Olympiad. The situation is aptly described in Feynman's memoir when he visited Brazil and complained that not a single person was learning science there even though they excelled in class. The average African, save for a few like you , have not and will never know the joys of science. it's somehow not just in most of us.

Yeah. I've also noticed most people drifted into law (oil and gas law) and economics/finance while the "engineers" went into management. Apart from that, we have had writers and you have to agree that some have been really good at it (e.g. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe etc). So it looks like it might just have been lack of childhood exposure and a lack of proper teachers to thoroughly teach the basics. From our daily Naija news, you can see that some people are trying to "invent" stuff but lack knowledge.

Sorry my thoughts are a bit shitty at the moment... lots of drinks

Exciton:
I can easily explain why we never do well at the IMO because I first saw the questions when I was at Secondary school and also couldn't solve a full question. Look at our foremost math competition in Nigeria: Cowbell. It's basically EASY plug and play speed math. Nothing more. It doesn't involve any complex problem solving skill. And I watched a movie about the training of kids for the IMO. I assure you, there's not a SINGLE secondary school teacher that can teach our kids number theory and the likes that's a necessary pre-requisite to solve most IMO level problems.

The reason we perform so poorly at the IMO is simply because we have no one to teach our kids the tools needed to solve those kinda problems. It's nothing intrinsic. That I am 100% sure of.

they actually get trained my professors (some non-nigerian) at least 6 months before travel date ... I also tried .. but got cut off during qualifiers

Exciton:
Yeah. I've also noticed most people drifted into law (oil and gas law) and economics/finance while the "engineers" went into management. Apart from that, we have had writers and you have to agree that some have been really good at it (e.g. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe etc). So it looks like it might just have been lack of childhood exposure and a lack of proper teachers to thoroughly teach the basics. From our daily Naija news, you can see that some people are trying to "invent" stuff but lack knowledge.

Sorry my thoughts are a bit shitty at the moment... lots of drinks

Teedawg:
Lol ma phone is made in sk I've used and learnt about lots of products from china and as long it's not a well recognized company, it can never compete with flagship products just like your brain can't compete with mine

Only children throw insult at people you dont know, my friend your smartphone is made in China. I challenge you to post the picture and brand of your phone here. Even iphone is manufactured in China by Foxconn. Lots of products are manufactured in China but done according to the specs.and requirements. Stop arguing what you dont know. Thank you

Exciton:
Everyone is moving forward apart from this fvcking sh!thole country where the average man believes one can magically transform limbs into bank notes. Low quality people in this country has us at least 500-1000 years behind.

I've read a series of new arguments and I apologize for the harsh words. It's childish of me to blame the common SS African for his ignorance, lack of drive to learn, and inability to reason critically. It's not even really the leaders' fault cos most are just like the rest.