Reversing Brain Drain… Stimulating Functional Scholarship Reversing Brain Drain … Stimulating Functional Scholarship Being Remarks by His Excellency Dr. Kayode FAYEMI Governor, Ekiti State, Nigeria at the Opening Ceremony of the 1st Edition of IKOGOSI GRADUATE SUMMER SCHOOL Monday, June 17, 2013 Protocols I am delighted to welcome you all, on behalf of the Government of Ekiti State, Nigeria, to the making of history here in Ikogosi-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria. This administration in keeping with the heritage of our people as trailblazers in educational advancement, has naturally taken the lead with this novel initiative aimed at Reversing Brain Drain and Stimulating Functional Scholarship among our people. The Ikogosi Graduate Summer School (IGSS) which is the result of several months of careful planning and implementation was first mooted during discussions with my very good friends Dr. Wale Adebanwi and Dr. Ebenezer Obadare, both of who belong to a cadre of restless activist academics always seeking out ways to reform the system. At the time, my administration had just embarked on crucial reforms in the Education Sector as part of our 8-Point development agenda, and in line with the recommendations of first – a high profile visitation panel that traversed our institutions; and second – an education summit that brought together stakeholders from within and outside the state. On assumption of office in October 2010, we met an ailing education sector that featured 3 unsustainable state government-owned higher institutions that ranked poorly among peers in the country; decrepit infrastructure and high failure rates in our primary and secondary schools, sub-optimal regulation of private schools and a general lack of coherence and articulation of any sort of progressive educational policy in the state. The portends were dire and we had to act fast and decisively to address the issues, but not before we consulted widely as our participatory governance ethos required; at least for the purpose of validating our concerns before taking far reaching steps. The conception of IGSS was therefore against the backdrop of an already existing developmental roadmap for our administration called the 8-Point agenda, which gives prominence to Education and Human Capital Development; as well as the soundly articulated recommendations from the Visitation Panel and the Education Summit that had held in the state. In fact, we had covered some distance in the implementation of our roadmap and had begun seeing tangible results, but there was more that could be done! It wasn’t just about the political will and the capacity to carry out forward looking reforms in the education sector, the proponents of the IGSS argued that if our education system was to become competitive on the global turf as quickly as possible, while implementing necessary reforms, we had to urgently seek out ways to redeem the colossal loss of human capital that had seen some of our brightest minds in the academia relocate from our shores to the ends of the earth. This phenomenon popularly called the ‘Brain Drain’ is as a result of the decades of military dictatorship and bad governance that pockmarks our trajectory as a nation, and almost paralysed our education system, leading to our academics seeking better prospects abroad in droves. The poser was how we could leverage the large army of Nigerian academics who are on the faculty of top-rated citadels of learning around the world, in stimulating functional scholarship in Nigeria. Ikogosi Graduate Summer School was therefore proposed as a platform through which Nigerian academics in the Diaspora could mobilize their expertise, experience, and exposure in advancing (post)graduate education in Nigeria. The programme is designed as a fully residential intensive training school, which will facilitate greater scholarly, experiential and practical insights into the dynamics of knowledge-production in the 21st century. It also hopes to create and nurture relationships among Nigerian scholars in the Diaspora, Nigerian scholars at home and (post)graduate students in Nigeria. The IGSS will adopt interdisciplinary, comparative, and highly interactive approach to training participants. Specifically, the IGSS is designed to: Enrich and expand the training of (post)graduate students in Nigeria; Provide expansive and greater scholarly opportunities for (post)graduate students; Train (post)graduate students in the processes and culture of research in the global age; Deepen and expand the horizon of (post)graduate students in Nigeria; Introduce graduate students to world-class state-of the-art research and scholarship; Offer assistance to (post)graduate students in Nigeria in terms of current literature in particular, and research materials in general; Encourage and provide scholarly exchanges and interactions between (post)graduate students and scholars in Nigeria, and Nigerian scholars abroad; Provide “external” mentoring for (post)graduate students in Nigeria; and Train students in the art of writing proposal (for graduate programme as well as for research funding), and how to publish in internationally-reputed journals and other outlets. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing here today is the fruition of the ideas we discussed several months ago; I must therefore thank the Directors of the school once again for their persistence in following through with the vision. I also offer my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Niyi Osundare, a distinguished Professor at the University of New Orleans for accepting to give the keynote speech, it is a very rare privilege to have you here in person to share your insights and I am grateful for the honour. I also thank all the faculty of the IGSS comprising highly sought after Nigerian academics from all over the world. This assemblage would still make any institution green with envy if you had decided to give your lectures via video conferencing from the comforts of your bases, but you accepted to make yourselves available in person during a very busy time of the year and for this I am very grateful. I also recognise the exceptional young scholars who have been chosen to participate as pioneer students in the IGSS. I encourage you to make the best of this opportunity to learn and be mentored by those that have gone ahead of you. My administration has invested huge resources into this project, particularly to ensure that all 50 successful candidates are able to participate in the IGSS free-of-all-charge so as to foreclose exclusion of anybody on the basis of financial need. Therefore we look to this pioneer set of IGSS Fellows to justify the time, energy and resources expended by all stakeholders in putting this together, I am certain you would not disappoint us. May I state at this point that my administration does not pay mere lip service to participatory governance; we are always eager to listen to the progressive ideas and suggestions of all stakeholders and are prepared to work with them to implement these ideas for the benefit of our people. This culture informed the conceiving of the IGSS and should also drive its growth. I therefore solicit constructive feedback from all and sundry on aspects of this initiative we can do better or differently. This is just the humble beginnings of the IGSS; I invite you all to join hands with us in making this initiative highly impactful and sustainable. The Ikogosi Graduate Summer School is certainly the first of its type on these shores and we should all be proud of participating as midwives in its birthing. More importantly, however, IGSS is a part of a wider effort to transform our society brick by brick – in this instance by giving new life to university education in Nigeria. The IGSS that is being launched today addresses in a direct manner policy matters – or gaps that lay beyond the reach of a state government under Nigeria’s current constitution. To be sure, tertiary education belongs on the concurrent list, which means that both the federal and state governments can make laws on matters relating to it. On the other hand, some of the problems that the academy has faced in Nigeria since at least the late 1970s reflect the character of the international political economy, especially its post-colonial phase, and Nigeria’s place within this frame. Certainly under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, a state government can establish and run a university. Yet some of the most critical factors in the universal environment of the university – such as brain drain and its deleterious effects – can seem beyond the immediate reach of the average governor. For example, a sitting governor acting as Visitor to a university can offer the Naira equivalent of a Harvard professor’s salary as an incentive to lure an émigré scholar back home. But does the governor also control power supply or the security agencies? How about the purchasing power of the Naira? However these puzzles are answered, one point is beyond debate. Though the challenges facing the university in Nigeria are complex and the portents can be dire, we cannot and shall not give up! It is reasonable to approach a huge problem head-on; yet under certain circumstances it might be far more practical to construct and apply remedies on the margins. One solution to brain drain perhaps is to repatriate all émigré professors. Another is to impose a tax on the income they generate from their second home or country of residence. The tax burden may or may not be cushioned with offers of voice or representation in policy and/or political circles. In times past, some regimes in Nigeria even seemed to pursue a systematic harassment of vocal elements among her citizens in the Diaspora. This is not the place to assess these options. It will suffice to state that as we have conceived of it, IGSS offers a fresh perspective on bridge-building between home and abroad insofar as these concern Nigeria and Nigerians. Of course, IGSS has a specific focus, namely Nigerian scholars in the Diaspora on the one hand, and the university at home on the other. There is no question the latter has suffered untold hardship while Nigeria was under the jackboots. As our own Professor Niyi Osundare put it in his valedictory lecture, years of military rule had meant a loss of the universe in Nigeria’s universities. In some of my interventions in the public discourse on education, I myself have had reason to speak about the loss of the culture of inquiry and moderation that the university has typically represented in other climes. In a lecture I delivered at the 2nd Convocation of the Osun State University in July 2012, I called attention to journal articles that are everything but scholarly; to publications that are driven by the quest for unmerited promotion and so add little or nothing to society’s stock of useable knowledge; and to the menace that VCs without CVs represent to the university system. If some reports in the mass media are to be believed, many a university in Nigeria is probably closer to being a private fief than it is a community of erudite scholars. Can such a community provide leadership for wider society? Yes, so long as a man can run with his hands tied to his back! My Osogbo lecture and other interventions have not been all moaning and no solutions, however. I have severally called for a fresh look at how to turn brain drain to brain gain. Nigerians in the Diaspora can seem to lack empathy or the milk of kindness, but that is what obtains when personal utility functions contrast sharply with social aspirations. Deep down, Nigerian émigrés are willing and able to give back to their ancestral homes. They can help mentor undergraduates, supervise higher degree dissertation and other research, and generally help rebuild academic communities from the bottom up. If the appropriate infrastructure is in place, Nigerians in the Diaspora can be deployed to help with classroom teaching and even take on administrative responsibilities. By doing all these and more, Nigeria would have begun to recreate the university system in order to make for a more functional scholarship, and the pursuit of knowledge not only for its own sake but in pursuit of a morally sound society. These are our dreams for IGSS. It would be a pillar of support for the university system, providing flexible services where identities or other traditions stand in the way. It would also promote what can be called learning without boundaries, a new culture of inquiry in which endless interrogation is an article of faith and multi-disciplinarity is the rule rather than the exception. Let me conclude by bringing your attention to the home of the IGSS which is the recently launched Ikogosi Springs Resorts. For those that have been here before we embarked on our reconstruction project, you must be amazed at the transformation that has taken place already. I am certain that the tranquility and beauty of the ambience here would augur well for the rigorous intellectual engagements that would be taking place here. I encourage you to enjoy every bit of the experience here because it is designed to be totally exhilarating and worth every bit of your time. It is with these few words that I declare open the Ikogosi Graduate Summer School to the Glory of God and the benefit of all humankind. We are getting there, Just Keep Faith because In God we Trust. Thank you. Dr. Kayode Fayemi Governor Ikogosi Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria Monday, June 17, 2013
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:34:51 +0000
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