Reading Ayo Olukotun’s article on the lost art of self-education (THE PUNCH, Friday, July 10, 2015) made me realize that what Nigeria’s educational system needs now is a creative system of self-education.
Self-education (also known as autodidactocism) refers to the act or activity of impacting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment by one’s own efforts, especially without formal instructions.
The art of self-education began long ago in the Egyptian civilization; during which children were sent to libraries and giving papyrus which contained up-to date knowledge from which they studied. It continued through the Assyrian civilization, Greek civilization and then to the Roman civilization.
The need and use of self-education reached its peak during the renaissance period. This period witnessed the emergence of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael De Santi among others who used to a high level self-education to achieve their now legendary status. Chief among them was Da Vinci, who spent many of his young days in the countryside of Florence, Italy where he honed his skills of painting and drawing continually.
However, due to the various inventions and increased sophistication of the 20th century man, there is now a focus on the essence of formal education instead of self-taught learning. This is a result of the emergence of various disciplines and the rigid guidelines set by scholars to study them.
Therefore, people prefer to be taught by lecturers and teachers rather than sit down and get deeply grounded and firmly rooted in their choice of study.
In Nigeria for example, this trend of classroom learning as resulted in the creation and production of Nigerian professionals, workers and students who have shallow and peripheral understanding in their various disciplines.
Nonetheless, there are various benefits of self-education which makes it rank far above formal education. These include the creation of an independent thinker, the development of good work ethics, elimination of every excuse for not reaching one’s potentials and creating an individual that has the capability and curiosity to learn without restrictions.
My journey into self-education started in 2009 when I had just finished primary school in a private school in Lagos. I at the age of 9, was planning to move onto the formal secondary school system. But due to some very interesting incident, I had to stop schooling. It was further worsened by the movement of the family from our current accommodation.
It was my father (who is an architect) that came up with this idea of self-education. I was initially opposed to it as I preferred the formal system but it was the only feasible and viable option at that point in time.
He (my father) took the subjects of the formal secondary school curriculum and divided it in a way that made it possible to finish the curriculum in just three years! This meant for me to do most of the work (approximately 70%) and ask questions from him (my father) who happened to be my primary tutor, my mother (who was a former chemistry and biology teacher) and my two sisters who were my English and Mathematics instructors.
During the course of the second year, we moved to a new accommodation from where I continued with the same curriculum. After two years of studying, my father suggested that I should take November/December WAEC GCE examination, which I took but did not attain credit in all subjects. Based on the experiences gained in the exam, I worked and studied hard and attempted the next year’s May/June WAEC examinations.
I obtained credits in all the subjects to my greatest surprise and bewilderment at the age of 12!
Following this successful attempt, I enrolled at NOUN (National Open University of Nigeria) which happens to be the only university in Nigeria (as far as I know) that does not include age limit as one of its requirements for entry. I commenced at NOUN for an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Extension and Management based on self-education.
Simultaneously, I took the professional exams of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) and have become an associate member of the NIPR (in February 2016) at the age of 16.
Hence, to attain and sustain the heights reached by great men (like Barrister Afe Babalola, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Herman Melville, Jose Saramago, Gilbert Chesterton, Terry Eagleton), the lost art of self-education must be incorporated back into our learning processes to ensure that we stop producing urban-fodder for the world to use at will and burn.
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