Public Value and Graduate Education in Nigeria: Why the Civil Service may remain the way it is!

For the past 10 months, I've been involved in developing graduate courses in Public Administration and Public Policy at the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, and now that the project is kicking-off in a few weeks, I'm ecstatic about the prospects of a syndicated educational product for the public service, nay, the entire management sector in Nigeria.

First of, what are the lessons I've learnt in designing educational programmes? A whole lot! I can now appreciate why folks in 'Education' say it's a calling. With little or no experience in curriculum development or education management, our team plunged into researching the core issues of capacity-deficit and retro-productivity anomie in Nigeria's public sector, then we went on to analyse the various strategies and scope of intervention by the government in curbing this menace. It was then I realised how impervious attempts at public service reforms have been to the chronic state of bureau-pathology that manifests at all levels of the service. There's a missing link in government's efforts at stabilising the polity through the agency of the civil service, and guess what that link is? Quality Control.

Needless to say that a lot of those that occupy the rank and file of Nigeria's public bureaucracy are with all due respect, certificated quacks. Yes, they were trained via the conventional education system in Nigeria and perhaps some still went for postgraduate trainings, but quite frankly, most people hardly ever get to cut their teeth through the basics of what they are taught, why you may ask? lack of practicality! You see, learning is experiential, you can't learn, much less do what you don't see. It was Xunzi (not Confucius) that said: "What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand". Competence is not a betrothed gift given to you on your convocation day, it's an hard-earned skill you develop via field exposure to the subjects of your study.

By critically engaging conventional wisdom and recalibrating existing methodologies, we prime ourselves for deeper revelations and new insights about the realities surrounding us. But quite unfortunately, this continues to remain a foreign matter in the discourse of educational reforms in Nigeria. This is perhaps why a doctorate degree holder in say, Political Science at senior directorate level in the civil service may not be able to craft a strategic development plan for his department, much less advise his principal on the policy implications of the ERGP for their ministry. After all, they've got consultants like me to do the thinking and fabrications for them.

Looking back from when we started the project in August 2017, I can confidently say that my impression of excellence in both public and private sectors in Nigeria have greatly improved, and I've now become an ardent believer, nay, advocate of continuous learning and capacity-development initiatives for both individuals and organisations. So for the next few weeks, permit me to introduce the Graduate Programmes in Public Administration and Public Policy to you.

Have a wonderful June ahead!

@isgppprograms

https://isgpp.com.ng/programmes/graduate-programme/

Oluwatobiloba Daniel Adewunmi is the Technical Secretary of the Graduate Programmes School at the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy. He can be reached directly via [email protected]