Current Challenges and Strategies for
Transforming Basic Education for National
Development
by
Umar F. Mohammed(PhD)
National Office for Technology Acquisition and
Promotion, NOTAP
Introduction
Education is the most important factor that determines the
success of human existence in this universe. It is a barometer
for the measuring the economic success of a nation and the
engine for civilisation. It is the oldest human venture that has
existed since the creation of the universe. The pursuit for
knowledge has been the greatest and oldest endeavour ever
made by humanity.
Education is a quality that differentiate an animal from a
human, a civilised person from an uncivilised person and an
illiterate from a literate.
Also education is the instrument that distinguishes a civilised
country from an uncivilised country, the developed nations
from the undeveloped nations and is the implement by which
stronger nations dictate their policies to the weaker nations.
Introduction (Con’t)
As such, if Nigeria is to register herself among the committee
of civilised and rich nations then, education is the Key.
Education defined
Education is the process of acquiring knowledge
hitherto unknown to a person and the development of
a system to use that knowledge positively for the
advancement of the immediate society and humanity
as a whole.
Also education is defined as:
The wealth of knowledge acquired by an individual
after studying particular subject matters or
experiencing life lessons that provide an understanding
of something. Education requires instruction of some
sort from an individual or composed literature
(business
dictionary)
Types of Education
Two(2) types
Formal and Informal
a) Informal Education: informal education is the
education done outside the normal school
system
b) Formal education is the type of knowledge
imparting carried out in the normal school
system
Current Structure of Nigerian Basic Education
(the 6,3,3,4 system)
Current Structure of Nigerian Basic Education (Con’t)
Currently, the Nigerian basic education structure
consist of a 9 year study program under the
6,3,3,4 Nigerian system of education. It means a
child is expected to commence his primary
education at the age of six (6) years and would
spend a maximum of six (6) years in the primary
school before proceeding to spent 3 years at the
junior secondary school. He then proceeds to
spend another 3 years at the senior secondary
school before going to the university or
polytechnic or college of education.
Revised Nigerian Basic Primary School Curriculum
Meaning of Primary School Curriculum
• Is an educational planning document which
outlines the contents of children’s learning—the
what and how of children’s learning—for
children’s first nine years in school, from the first
class up to the junior secondary school. The
curriculum aims to:
• develop each child’s potential to the full
• encourage a love of learning
• help children develop skills they will use all their
lives.
Revised Nigerian Basic Primary School Curriculum
(Con’t)
The curriculum is presented in seven
areas, some of which are further
subdivided into subjects. These
are:
1.English Studies
2. Mathematics
3. Cultural and Creative Arts (CCA)
4. One Nigerian Language
5. Basic Science and Technology
(BST)
i. Basic Science
ii. Basic Technology
iii. Physical &Health
iv. Information Technology
6. Pre- Vocational Studies, PVS – to
be introduced from Primary 4
i. Home Economics
ii. Agriculture
7. Religion and National Values, RNV
i. Christian Religious Studies
ii. Islamic Studies,
iii. Social Studies,
iv. Civic Education
v. security Education
8. French – to be introduced from
Primary 4
9. Business
Studies/Entrepreneurship, BSE –
to be introduced in JSS1)
10. Arabic (Optional)
Nigeria
English Studies
Mathematics
India
Languagesd
Mathematics
South Korea
Korean Language
Moral Education
Cultural & Creative Art
Social Sciences
Social studies
One Nigerian Language
Science
Mathematics
Basic Science & Technology(i) Health & Physical
Basic science, (ii)Basic
Education
Technolgy, (iii) Physical Health
Pre-vocational Studies
7. Religion and National
Values, RNV
i. Christian Religious
Studies
ii. Islamic Studies,
iii. Social Studies,
iv. Civic Education
v. security Education
8. French – to be
introduced from Primary 4
9. Business
Studies/Entrepreneurship,
BSE – to be introduced in
JSS1)
10. Arabic (Optional)
Arts
Work experiance
Science
Ireland
USA
Mathematics
English
Social environmental
& scientific
Education(History,Geo
graphy, Science)
Mathematics
Arts Education (Visual Social studies/History
arts, Music, Drama)
Physical
Education(Social,
personal & Health
education)
Religion education
Science
Praictical Arts
Physical Education
Modern language
performing arts
visual arts
Music fine Arts
Religion
Foreign Language
Physical
Education/health
computer
Library/media
Life skills
community services
Challenges Facing Universal Basic Education in Nigeria
 Funding;
 There is Absence of enough and adequate
government funding for basic education
 Lack of other funding mechanism for primary
education, such as through tax system, levies,
personal contributions, etc.
Data source: Internet
160
Annual Budgetary Spending
149.5
148.6
145.8
140
138.7
138.6
Amount B(US$)
120
100
80
Nigeria
USA
60
40
20
0
2009.5
2010
2.8
2.1
2
2010.5
2011
2011.5
2012
Year
3.2
2.7
2012.5
2013
2013.5
2014
2014.5
 Infrastructure
 Absence of basic infrastructure such as standard buildings,
furniture, constant electricity, laboratory facilities, clean
portable drinking water, dispensaries & clinics, libraries, etc.
 Teaching Materials
 Absence of enough teaching facilities such as text books,
writing materials, instructional tools, etc.
 Financial
 Poor remuneration of teachers
 High poverty rates among the people
 Absence of incentives for teacher
 Lack of motivation among teachers
 Technical
 Absence of enough technical innovation skills for the sector
 Absence of modern technological teaching tools such as
audiovisual devices, VSAT, computers, laptops, multimedia
devices, etc
 Societal
 High drop out of children from schools for labour work
 Lack of demand for accountability by the people
 Mistrust about government policies
 I don't care attitude for children's’ education among parent
 Administrative
 Lack of political will to implement government policies
 Lack of proper monitoring and regulatory mechanism to
enforce government’s rules and regulations in education
Lack of a comprehensive training programme
for teachers
High level of Corruption among government
officials
Rampant examination malpractices
Religious
Misconception among the religion about
western education
Discrimination in the system due to religious
affiliations
Strategy for Transformation
• Increase the funding for education
• Create more synergy and collaboration between all the
relevant educational stakeholders to compliment each other
• The education sector should look inward with a view of
patronising made in Nigeria educational facilities developed
by other agencies and local inventors.
• Government should establish a dedicated educational
development fund for basic primary education to supplement
the statutory budgetary allocation for education
• The teaching of science and technology subjects should be
encouraged to develop the future critical mass of engineers
and technicians that will produce educational facilities.
Strategy for Transformation (con’t...)
• The education sector should exploit other viable educational
initiatives that exists in other institutions to accelerate the
development of the sector.
• Education should be modernised with more modern facilities
and equipment and government should provide necessary
infrastructure through proper funding both in the urban and
rural areas in line with the universalisation objectives
• Government should draft a policy on e-learning as a new
education method to compliment the traditional way of
learning which is more costlier.
The NOTAP’s Educational Initiatives
Brief history of NOTAP
• The National Office for Technology Acquisition
and Promotion (NOTAP), an agency under the
aegis of the Federal Ministry of Science and
Technology was established by Decree No. 70
of 1979, as the National Office of Industrial
Property (NOIP).
The NOTAP’s Educational Initiatives (Con’t..)
It is a corporate body with the following mandates:
 To implement the acquisition, promotion and
development of technology and at the same time
correct certain imperfections in the acquisition of
foreign technology into the country.
In 1992, the name of the Office was changed to
National Office for Technology Acquisition and
Promotion (NOTAP) by Decree
The NOTAP’s Educational Initiatives (con’t..)
No. 82 of 1992 now referred to as NOTAP Act
cap 268 LFN 1994. This was to ensure that the
name adequately reflects the entire functions
of the Office and to also remove any
ambiguity or misconception that may arise in
relation to any other Government agency.
• VISION OF NOTAP: To move Nigeria from the periphery
to the dominant centre of global industrial power
structure within the shortest possible time and make
her a major global power house of the 21st Century
through an efficient Technology Acquisition Strategy
and a vibrant innovation and R&D commercialization
programme.
• MISSION: To ensure the acceleration of Nigeria's drive
towards a rapid technological revolution by an efficient
acquisition/absorption of foreign technology and a
concerted development of indigenous technological
capability through a proactive promotion of innovation
and commercialisation of technology.
NOTAP’s Educational Initiatives on Science and
Technology Pedagogies
 The Technology Storyboard Initiative
• The Technology Story Board Programme is an
educational and instructional tool aimed at planting
the seeds of science, technology and innovation at
the basic educational level to ultimately produce the
critical mass of highly skilled S&T manpower needed
by the country for future technological and
economical development.
Technology Storyboard Initiative
• The concept involve a step – by- step graphic/pictorial
representation of the technological process of
transforming raw materials to final consumable
products. Interestingly, it was noted that for most of
these products, the raw materials and the final
products are both well known to children, while the
intermediate processes remain a mystery
• NOTAP developed the concept in close consultation
with many manufacturing companies which resulted in
the development of the Technology Storyboards
Technology Storyboard
Technology Storyboard
Technology Storyboard
 Technology Story Books Programme
The programme is a fall out of the technology
storyboard initiative. It consist of production
of series of children science and technology
story books and is part of a program to
reverse the worrying trend of growing
disinterest in science and technology subjects
among children which portends to a very
serious
problem in the future for the
socioeconomic development of Nigeria.
Technology Story Books (Con’t...)
The series uses the imagery and simplicity of
traditional children folktales stories in
communicating different areas of science and
technology of products manufactured by
companies to children in a way that makes
learning science and technology very exciting.

The Digitalised ALLO Initiative
The word Allo is a Hausa word and it means
blackboard or writing material.
The Allo is an Islamic learning art/tool which has
been in existence many centuries ago to
propagate islamic knowledge. The qur’anic text is
normally written on the board using local ink
produced from either charcoal or leaves of trees.
The digitalised Allo is an innovative instrument
that combines the Allo and a digital ipad
computer developed to modernise the process of
impacting islamic knowledge by using digital
instrument.
The Digitalised ALLO Initiative (Con’t)
The Digitalised ALLO Initiative (Con’t)
The Digitalised ALLO Initiative(Con’t)
The Major objectives of the innovation are
• To modernise the process of traditional Islamic
teaching and learning in the country
• To directly or indirectly ingrain the conscious
of the students and the Islamic teachers about
the efficacy of western education
• To eradicate the misconception about western
education common among Islamic scholars
and students.
NOTAP-Industry Technology Transfer Fellowship
(NITTF)
The NOTAP-Industry Technology Transfer
Fellowship (NITTF) is a Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) platform designed to create
indigenous critical technological competences
of elite applied knowledge workers in Nigeria
through special PhD programmes tenable in
Nigerian Universities. The support is for a
maximum period of 4 years to be jointly
implemented by NOTAP and Industry.
NOTAP-Industry Technology Transfer Fellowship
(NITTF)
• The scheme is a tripartite arrangement where
industry will provide fund and laboratory facilities,
the university will train and employ the fellows
while the government i.e NOTAP initiates and
manages the interface to produce “pool of critical
mass of manpower” needed for speedy economic
development of the country.
• NOTAP is partnering with all industries having
technology transfer agreements registered with the
office and other organizations and individuals in
the implementation of this scheme. NITTF is
administered by NOTAP and its partners.
Objectives of NITTF
The objectives are :
 Create a pool of knowledgeable and skilled
manpower that will facilitate technology acquisition,
assimilation and diffusion.
 Provide academic staff of universities with broad and
direct experience of industry to benefit research and
enhance the relevance of teaching
 Stimulate and translate research results to the
private sector to develop a sustainable technologybased economy.
Objectives of NITTF (Con’t...)
 Establish appropriate linkages between university
research institutions and industrial sectors
 Establish a process and system for the commercial
exploitation of research results
 Encourage the setting up of joint ventures and
partnerships to sufficiently promote and profit from
R & D results.
 Encourage the use of spin out and spin off
companies as vehicles for promoting technology
transfer and commercialization
Objectives of NITTF
 Create a robust and dynamic R & D structure in
Nigeria.
Conclusion
The economic transformation of any nation is a completely
reliant on the education posses by its citizen. Education is the
pillar to the development of a nation.
We should know that if we want to leave a sustainable legacy
that will make our children to be proud of us we must give
then the quality education that will be useful to them.
Our natural resources, which we have been exploiting since
independence have failed to deliver us from the bondage of
poverty and misery. Our only hope is education.
In line with the Transformation Agenda of Mr. President he
should focused more attention to the Education Agenda.
Thank you!