RESTRUCTURING NIGERIA'S IRRELEVANT OVERBLOATED ACADEMIC CURRICULAR -THE FINLAND EXCEPTIONAL EXAMPLE

By Moshood Olajide

News emanating from Finland months ago has it that she is ready to do away with the conventional traditional education system. That, there won't be subjects. Students will have to study phenomenons, events, ideas and ideals that relate to their academic aspirations only. The implication of this is that - a Geography undergraduate will not do Biology like the doctors; rather he will concentrate fully on Climate Change management and Geomorphology. A student of International Relations too will not do Philosophy more than the Philosophers; rather, he will concentrate on the theory of diplomacy and power tussle in the International Political system. An Architecture student will not do Mathematics more than the Mathematicians, rather, energy will be focused on the poor land scape viewing of most cities including its urban renewal arrangement.

The problem with the Nigerian education system is that it is too rigid to adapt to the rapidity of an advancing and dynamic system of intellection especially with the over bloated curricular been taught in most Nigerian Universities with no relevance to the day to day happenings in the modern world.
For years, Finland has been the most successful education system in the world, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy which only East Asian countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings.

It is however remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programme ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic.

To pave way for the current radical education reform ever undertaken by a nation - state, already, the Finnish government have commence implementation of scrapping Subject-specific lessons. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a student studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills while more academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union.

The reforms reflect growing calls in Nigeria for total overhauling of the education sector especially centering teaching to promote character, resilience, diversity of skills, individual development and communication skills, rather than students cramming unproductive formulas and just pushing undergraduates through “exam factories”.

Nigeria has one or two things to borrow from the developed world about how their education system are organized and run and adapt within the local capacity. For instance, a country like Finland emerged in year 2000 as the top scoring Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nation on the programme for International Students Assessment.

Researchers have been pouring in to the country to study the so - called "Finnish Miracle". How did a country with an undistinguished education system in the 1980's surge to the head of global class in just a couple of decades?

Investigation suggests that Finland developed such excellence in its teaching workforce. The State publicly recognized the competence of its teachers and trust their professional judgement in schools.

Finnish educational system does not employ external standardized student testing to drive the performance in schools. Neither does it employ a rigorous inspection system of schools and lecturers. Instead of test based accountability, the Finnish system relies on the expertize, and professional accountability of well groomed and highly trained teachers, who are knowledgeable and committed to their students and communities.

Along with curriculum design, teachers play a role in the assessment of students. Finnish schools do not use standardized testing to determine students success as education policy in Finland gives a high priority to personalized learning and creativity.

And the only external test in Finland is the Matriculation examination that students who want to go on higher education take at the end of upper general secondary school which is equivalent of Nigeria's Senior Secondary schools.

For the reasons adduced and the explanation explicitly analyzed above , could the Honourable Minister of Education engineer complete overhauling of Nigeria academic curriculum and consider revamping WASSCE and NECO and transform them in to a final matriculation examination for upper Senior secondary school leavers who want to gain admission to higher institutions?

The advantages are unquantifiable. The Children of this country will remember him for the rest of their lives. However, all is not lost. The Minister should constitute an integrity - filled 15 man team to enforce the decision of the federal government to scrap Post - Utme and Pre - Degree in Varsities while other blind spots in the country education system as encapsulated and conceptualized in this article should be tackled and given priority for the direction of education in Nigeria as the tools of the 20th century are no longer appropriate for education as we need a rethinking of real productive education and a redesigning of our system, to prepare undergraduates for the future with the skills that are needed for today and tomorrow.

Moshood Olajide is a Student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile- Ife, Osun State.