By Ignatius Chukwu

States of the south-east Nigeria have concluded plans to mount an education support in an attempt to turn around the plank upon which the region’s greatness was built. The Education Summit is expected to hold in Owerri, Imo State, between May 9 and 10, 2013, with top world educationists and leaders ready to help the region reposition its major asset.

Now, as regions begin to ask the right questions about their economies and finding a link between it and education, the south-east has also resolved to carry out a kind of inquest into the collapse of educational advancement in their region. Some experts from the region said it hurts to hear comedians cast the eastern region in the mould of cash-seekers and not seekers of real knowledge.

Now, the fighting spirit of the south-east governors have been brought out to confront the rot in education, first by coming together at a summit with international experts to brainstorm on the matter. To join at the ‘alter of men’ will be education policy makers (state ministries of education), universities and other tertiary institutions, professional organisations, international organisations and foundations that have worked for the advancement of education in the region.

The region is known for entrepreneurship and private efforts, most of its successful endeavours are often executed in a public private partnership (PPP) concept. This must be why the states saw it fit to allow Praik-Allied Nigeria, a licensee of the famous Applied Scholastics International (ASI) of USA, known for huge works in study technologies, to handle this great task.

The Programmes Director of Praik-Allied, Prince-Iroha Kalu, a corporate strategist, human capital and study technology expert, told Vanguard Learning that the focus of his international partners, ASI, “is to build a functional society by putting learning to practice because if learning is not put into practice, the basis of education is destroyed.”

Kalu said this concept came into Nigeria in 2006 through Praik-Applied International to train the master trainers selected from Colleges of Education, universities of education, etc, where the first batch of 99 were certified. Further training in the USA saw the Ohaofia-born entrepreneur and investor rise to be the only licensed representative of ASI in Nigeria and sub-Sahara Africa.

The group would use its experience in the colleges of education in Nigeria, and other teacher-retraining programmes in Kano, Katsina, Zaria, Owerri, Rivers, etc where lecturers ensure that the fundamentals are got right to reposition education in the east.

A major task waiting to confront the experts at the South-East Summit, according to Kalu, is to find a way to tackle the growing hunger for certificate rather knowledge in the region, a virus that seems to breed exam fraud. The education summit would develop a blueprint for undergraduate financing scheme so that indigent undergraduates can study and pay later or secure soft loans to pull through tertiary institutions.

The expert from Praik-Applied said that the South-East Education Summit is conceived to help the region tackle problems associated with education and enhance government’s functionality and restore the region’s leadership edge in education. He said that online registration is going already and that the organizers would cut off the registration sometime in March to take only the number that the scope can accommodate in this first edition. He said the governors are the hosts and they would let the experts hear their plans and work with the likes of Koffi Anan and other world leading experts on education and development.

At the end of the brainstorming, a blueprint would be developed to enable each state work in the same line so that in the next decade, the region would have same focus even if achievements varied. Kalu said by his close interaction with each state government, he is convinced that state has a desire to turn around its education but the tasks were daunting. Each state has so far tried incentives such as free education and scholarship scheme but that a thorough study was needed to find out the particular needs of each state.

The opening session would witness presentations from leading international experts. The governors would take turns to address the stakeholders and experts. There would be breakout sessions to examine the advice of experts and take expert submissions. An exciting moment would be a gala night where dignitaries would be treated to a soft atmosphere aimed at encouraging interactions and cross-fertilization of ideas. Here, most heads of institutions would meet with experts that can help solve most of their unique problems.