By Banji Ayoola
Far reaching recommendations on how Nigeria could revamp her university education to meet, and even surpass global standards, have been proffered by an American based Nigerian scholar, Prof Henry Fadamiro. Also, the Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Pest Management advised the Federal Government on necessary steps to take to ensure food security for the country. Fadamiro who is also the Co-Chairman of the Federal University of Technology Akure Alumni in Diaspora Association, suggested novel activities which alumni associations nationwide should indulge in to help their former schools in the areas of teaching and research, development of the students and the society at large. He was in Nigeria on behalf of his association to give scholarship awards to seven brilliant students of FUTA, and conduct workshops for lecturers of some higher institutions in Ondo State. He spoke with Banji Ayoola of The Radiance.
What motivated your association to award scholarships to seven students of your Alma mater last week?
Thank you very much. I want to thank you and your news organization for your interest in this story.
Yes. It is true that my group, the FUTA Alumni in Diaspora Association, awarded scholarships to seven students last week at FUTA. This is something that we take seriously. We are a group of FUTA Alumni resident outside of Nigeria. But the leadership of the group is mainly in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. We have been working to establish this scholarship award. So we were very pleased to make the award last week; and for I as Co-Chair of the group, it was a big honour to represent my group to make the award to deserving students.
The goal of the award is to motivate and inspire students of the Federal University of Technology Akure to display excellent performance; and also to provide reward for hard work. There is an adage that says to whom much is given, much is expected. Our group value education and we know the importance of providing incentives for excellent performance. And that is why we put this in place specifically to the young generation of university students to perform well in their academic studies.
How many students have benefitted since you set up this award?
This is the first set of students that would benefit from this award. Prior to that, some of us had established our own awards. For example, I established an award ten years ago at FUTA again to provide an incentive. And many of the award winners are now in the US or UK.
When they are given incentives, and they do well, we help them to further their career. We don’t just give the award, we also mentor and help those students to achieve excellence in their career. So, I have that personal award that I established, and I know that some other alumni have established similar awards.
But this is the first time as a group that we have come together to establish this award. And this is the first phase of the award. We have other scholarship awards in the making and other projects that we will be supporting at FUTA in the near future.
What are these other planned projects?
Some of the projects that we are talking about is developing an innovation centre at FUTA to encourage students who have great ideas to come and share the ideas and work on the ideas, stimulate innovation and patent product development. This is because one of the things we have realized is that Nigerians are very smart. The system may be weak, but individual Nigerians are smart because all over the world, you see Nigerians doing well. What we need to do is give Nigerians opportunities to display their creativity that can lead to innovation.
Would this award be an annual event?
Yes. The first phase of the award would be an annual event. Every year, we are going to be awarding seven students. There would be additional awards that would be established within the next one year. We are already working on that; and everything would be on an annual basis. In addition to the cash award that we gave to the students, our goal is to help the students; we are also assigning mentors to each of the award winners that would help them in their career development.
Do you have a message to other alumni associations in Nigeria?
Yes. I do have a message, and even in the United States where I work as a professor, most of the developments that you see in the universities are through endowments by alumni and philanthropists. The contribution of government to development in the universities is very minimal. It is the alumni that play a major role in the development of their institutions. Although I finished my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at FUTA, I was fortunate to receive my PhD from the University of Oxford, which is one of the oldest and best universities in the world. Oxford is one of the richest universities in the world. But every year, I get letters from them asking me to donate; and I give back. So I want to encourage my fellow Nigerians to cultivate the habit of giving back to the academic institutions.
How would this contribute to uplifting the standard of education in Nigeria?
Like I said, the best universities in Europe, America, and the entire Western world, are helped through endowments. It is through giving back. When people give back, the universities would be better developed. You give back to the research and teaching. That is how universities develop. And that is one way to raise the quality of our higher education in Nigeria.
Apart from contributions by the alumni, what do you think should be injected into the Nigerian education system, particularly the university system?
Remember I told you I came with some colleagues from the United States. We led a capacity building workshop on teaching and research with participants from three higher institutions in Ondo State – FUTA; Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA) and the Federal Polytechnic, Ile Oluji. We had about 100 participants. Lecturers and professors from these institutions were selected by their institutions to participate.
We shared some best practices about teaching. We talked about mentoring, why professors should take delight in mentoring students. There is no reason why students should be afraid of their professors. The goal of teaching is to facilitate learning, not to fail students. We also talked about research. One of the things missing in Nigeria is high impact research.
A lot of our universities are just teaching. But if you are teaching from old materials, there won’t be a lot of innovation. Research is what actually fuels teaching. And that is missing right now to a large extent. We shared some best practices to stimulate research and innovations. So, those are some of the things that I see that can help raise the quality of our university system.
Another aspect is private sector partnership. One of the things we enjoy in the US is partnership with the private industry. They support our work. They invest in our research programmes. At the same time we deliver, we solve problems. So there is that connection, that interaction.
I want to see that more here. My hope is that we would see a lot of interaction between the industry, the private sector and the university system that would help promote and facilitate excellent research at the university level.
Obviously, the government can do a better job, supporting the universities. But there is no place in the world where the government is the only source of funding for universities. Actually, government support accounts for less than half of the budget of many public universities in the US.
So, every university has got to go out to look for funding. Universities have to engage the private sector and international organizations. But it starts with high quality research. If they are known as a destination for high quality research, it would be easier for them to attract grants from international institutions.
There are some courses highly relevant to the 21st century, like Entomology, your own line. What other courses like that do you think should be introduced in Nigerian universities?
These are some of the things we talked about last week in addition to the teaching workshop. Two of the professors who came with me from the US are IT professors, Information Management System. They actually held a workshop at AAUA and another one at FUTA, training some of the lecturers on new technology in Information Management System. Yes. We have some of those courses in the books here. But the curriculum might be old. Some of the things we talked about last week was how to modernize the curriculum to make sure that it is relevant to the current situation.
So that is essentially what we do in the US. Very often, we review our curriculum, we get input from the private sector, the alumni, and other stakeholders group. And that makes the curriculum to be dynamic. That is one of the things I would like to see here, that I think would be helpful. This is because you can have a good course by title, but it is what is taught in that course that really matters.
We work with the Vice Chancellors of AAUA and FUTA; and the Rector of Federal Polytechnic, Ile Oluji.
What are the other activities being engaged in by your association?
We encourage and facilitate alumni networking because we are as good as our individual members. Some of our members, after graduating from here, find themselves in the Western world.
We are helping to mentor those new graduates with career mentoring. We organize reunions periodically to bring people together. We are helping with business development for some members that are interested in business. So it is a community. We are helping each other because it’s only when they are successful that they would be ready or willing to give back.
Who is Prof Henry Fadamiro?
My name is Henry Fadamiro and I was born in Ondo, Ondo State. I graduated from the Federal University of Technology Akure in 1989. In 1992, I was fortunate to receive a scholarship for my PhD degree at the University of Oxford in England. After that, I relocated to the US. Since 1996, I have worked at several institutions in the US.
I love people, I love making an impact in the lives of people. And just as I have benefitted significantly from mentoring, I value that. And that is one of the things I do. If I can lift somebody up, if I can help somebody, I find it very rewarding. That’s one of the reasons why I am really leading an effort like this. As Co-Chair of the FUTA Alumni in Diaspora Association, my role is to help lead this association in this kind of direction; and I am very fortunate to be in this role.
Your area of discipline?
I studied Biological Sciences at FUTA. I am now a Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Pest Management; I do researches into pest management. That is looking for ways to manage those pests that attack crops either during production in the field or during storage. This is looking for new ways instead of pesticides. We all know about pesticides. Pesticides are good but they can lead to some other issues. So one of the things I do in my lab is looking for new ways of managing pests without creating problem to the human health and also to the environment.
That is what Entomology embraces?
Yes. That is what Agricultural Entomology embraces, looking for ways to manage insect pests that attack crops.
What’s your advice to the Nigerian government on how to boost food production?
Nigeria is very blessed. When you look at our natural resources, we’ve got everything in terms of food security. We’ve got land, good soil, water, and the human resources. What we need more is organization. Part of the issues we are dealing with in Nigeria is opportunity to bring ideas together, but also financial support for those who are interested in Agriculture. So I would encourage Nigerian government to support Agriculture because that is the basic level of living. Without food, you can’t do anything; and all over the world they talk about food security.
Even in the US where we have surplus production in terms of food, the government invests so much money in Agriculture every year. I would like to see that happen here. That is some of the things we need to prioritise in Nigeria. We have a lot of opportunities to even make money from Agriculture in terms of exporting some of our products all over the world. But it requires coordination, foresight, supervision from the government.
What is the strength of the membership of the association?
The FUTA Alumni in Diaspora Association membership is hard to give you in number because people come in and go. But a good number, in terms of those who are active, is a few hundreds.
Any further comments?
I want to thank you for your interest in this association. Our association is waxing stronger by the day; and we are very pleased to be contributing in our own little way to the development of the country.
Thank you.
