OUR PRESSURISED UNIVERSITIES NEED ‘A SLOW PHILOSOPHY’

It makes little sense that the average Nigerian child will start school at a very tender age just to fit into the long 9-3-4 standard of educational system and still get dusted over by other kids in some other countries where they are not enrolled until they are little bit of age.

Obviously, we can simply attach this fault to the consistent drop in our educational system. Over the years, this drop has been a sing-song pattern with several deliberations being made on how to fix it but it has somehow seemed like a mission impossible.

Most certainly, many would agree that lack of funding has always been the major hindrance to improving educational quality. The bigger problem however, has been the case of allocation of scarce educational resources- simply suggesting that in a situation whereby there is the availability of funds, some institutions still fail to invest in the right teaching method and tools that will impact learning in the 21st century.

With this problem on ground already, why then are Universities still hastily prone to producing half-baked graduates?
There are so many storms to cross over to make Nigerian universities one of the best in the world and such dreams will never see daylight if they are being pressurized to set rushing academic calendars as yardstick for competition. To this effect, students are not properly taught, assigned ambiguous task, not given the right tools to embark on researches and are formidably expected to reach the high bar that has been set for them.

Apparently, our universities do not have time for intellectual pursuits. William Godwin says that we should not in eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education. The ends of education as a whole is meant to construct a society well rooted in knowledge for economic and human development.

Chiefly for this purpose, the university education is responsible. It is not just the level after high school but as we not oblivious of, is the level that affords the society to train professionals such as teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, scientist and other personnel, who in turn will lead a committed government, build the local economy and support the entire society. The goal therefore to be at the fore-front of world best can be achieved if there is an undying thirst for intellectual pursuits.

It could be argued however that our present day universities do not necessarily have the time for intellectual pursuits. Many at times, some of these institutions are only interested in grilling students to bring in fortunes and good reputation for the school.
The robotic exercise of taking the lecturers’ handout, studying it, cramming and pouring them out in exam is what is most likely expected in some institutions. Private institutions that are well equipped with the right teaching facilities have been observed to leave their students to utilized these facilities with minimal teachings from them.

On the other hand, it could be the case that no matter how long or stretched the semester may become, some students may still not be knowledge-filled. Looking at of all these, it will only take sheer determination on individuals’ part to be a productive graduate at the end of the day. The concept of ‘slow philosophy’ however can help address or reduce the outrageous number of unbaked graduates in the country and improve the quality of education.

We can think of slow philosophy as a critical practice that urges us to reduce or resist the haste of the competitive environment. It can help us to reconstitute an attentive and open relation with the strangeness of the world through hesitation, deliberation and ‘taking time’. In the initial process of doing this, we become reorientated in a way as we explore, contests and transform questions. We might make a case of this ‘slow philosophy’ has being a non-instrumental form of thinking and practice,( perhaps because it is a process that takes time and universities do not seems to have that luxury of time especially with the fact that they are not properly funded and are quick to end each session) but it is an effective means of engaging complexity, rather than reducing, denying or ignoring it and this goes a long way in incurring impact. Students do not need to be assigned lot of difficult task but just one that will them time to think, deliberate and arrive at surmountable solutions could be a good way to intellectual progress.

How then do we introduce slow practices within the university, to remain within the horizon of the university, while managing to produce difference and change? First by appreciating the important role it plays in the revaluation of what it means to do critical work in universities today. Secondly by providing spaces for encounters with complexity and open-ended enquiry and extending these encounters from our research to our teachings, offering the next generation the learning experience of a slow and immersed thought. With this, the country will be better off educationally, economically and sociologically.