Human capital development for any upwardly-mobile economy must start from the classroom at the pre-primary/primary level of the education system. And indeed, the basic framework for our approach to this subject matter flows from a quote from one of
the author’s literary works, Parchments of the African Creative Spirit, namely,
“Reviving, harnessing and appropriating the erstwhile creative spirit which constituted ancient black Egypt as a beacon of hope for the civilized world can and will be achieved through provoking and sustaining the learning process in Africa’s young minds”.
It is therefore unarguably true that it is at this composite level of “Africa’s young minds” that the appropriate exposure of the human mind to formal and indeed, informal education embedded in ‘thought-and-image-processing’ assumes a decisive character and therefore demands creative public policy attention.
The realities of life and purposeful living which the entrepreneurial capacity demands in the context of the desirable personality profiles would be better and seamlessly activated. It is indeed at this level of guided socialization that the desirable character mix could be progressively and successfully honed or perhaps largely destroyed for good.
This is the platform on which the virgin mind is molded like yam tendrils. It is patterned, excited, fed with the right kind and measure of orientations (bright sun light and water) and creatively guided to ensure the desirable outcomes.
By the time a child graduates from the primary level of the system, they would be well able to productively embrace the academic, professional and vocational streams of the system in a seamless, progressive and creative manner and so they are able to make positive contributions to social and economic development. And they would have been invariably imbued and equipped with the composite socio-
psychological and mental algorithms for creative and productive thinking processes which would then impact positively on their environment.
Public policy which is therefore evolved for the education system must, as a matter of national survival and global relevance, must find and engage the political will to institute a wholesome pre-primary/primary education system with the right mix of curricula content, values, attitudes and dispositions which could be engendered, cultivated and optimized by the following minimum set of enabling scenarios:
a. A creative and wholesome environment for learning, playing and teaching (including appropriate physical and digital technology infrastructure).
b. Roundly qualified, suitably certificated and well-informed instructors.
c. Highly motivated instructors (with social and material recognition, and a healthy financial reward structure, etc.).
d. Creatively structured teaching and learning tools, including books, visual aids, mentoring activities, appropriate entrepreneurial environment, other sundry materials and play pens.
e. Healthy nutrition, sight-seeing tours and medical services.
f. A purpose (especially entrepreneurial) and values-driven academic/functional curricula.
Any educational system which is built around this minimum set of scenarios at the pre-primary/primary level of education would invariably throw up a stock of human capital resources which are imbued with wholesome and desirable leadership patterns, mindsets, attitudes, dispositions and structures.
Those attributes are invariably bound to guarantee the evolution of a prosperous society that is well able to compete effectively in all aspects of essential and profitable globalization.
We will continue this expose next week as we continue to update you on knowledge resources you can use.