LEAPFROGGING, TUNNELING THROUGH AND OVERCOMING: MEETING THE NEEDS OF CONSTRUCTION EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Professor Natalia A. Anigbogu

Department of Building, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria

Universities are currently one of the main agents providing education within the education industry and stand at the centre of the knowledge-based economic development.

Universities are important industries in the economy. Activities undertaken in Universities provide about 2 per cent of GDP.

TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

rapid globalization, internationalisation and regionalisation

massification

new technologies

development of information and communication technologies

advancing network society

advancing knowledge society

the marketisation in higher education and science

changing roles of government

multiple stakeholders

demands for accountability and responsiveness to societal needs

market-like approaches to higher education

initiatives to promote greater entrepreneurial skills

MAJOR IMPACTS

movement of students and scholars, programmes and institutions across borders

rising international co-operation and competition

expansion of higher education( Japan, the Republic of Korea and Finland - have enrolment ratios nearing 80%.)

opened access to previously excluded populations, gender inequality erased in most countries

'talk and chalk' is not adequate

improved ways for knowledge can be produced, managed, disseminated, accessed and controlled

Internet outperformed university libraries and is challenging face-to-face lectures as a teaching tool

stand alone online courses and complete degree programs via the Internet, virtual universities with no campus and no on-campus students

the academic profession has become a large and complex profession with many faces

new performative measures

CHALLENGES

financing

equity of conditions at access into and during the course of studies

staff development

skills-based training

enhancement and preservation of quality in teaching, research and services

relevance of programmes

employability of graduates

establishment of efficient co-operation agreements

equitable access to the benefits of international co-operation

equitable access to technologies

increasing tension between the traditional and modern modes of teaching

uncertainty about the future of higher education and its place in society

future of the academic profession seems uncertain

Some of the trends and challenges of University education are determined by discipline or profession it provides the education and/or training for.

Construction education is also referred to in literature as

building education, architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) education and construction engineering

education

For construction education these are the reflection of the developments in the construction industry in addition to general developments with respect to higher education.

Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems (Education of Architects and Engineers, 1995) criticized the education of construction professionals by identifying the weaknesses in the curricular:

•Engineering education is being criticized for failing to teach design, the importance of which is being increasingly recognized in engineering programs. •Architectural students get considerable exposure to design, but overemphasize the art in architecture to the detriment of such matters as client needs, constructability, costs, designing to budget and technology. (The design teachers claim half the curriculum and about 80% of the students time; design teaching also absorbs the major proportion of resources and staff time, according to De Graaff and Cowdroy (1997)). •Both architects and engineers have expressed concern that schools are not adequately training students in technology, particularly integrating academic design with applied technology. Schools tend to separate design from the production process. • Architects are not being given sufficient training in such practical matters as construction materials and systems, construction methods and practices, the cost of construction, specifications writing, codes and standards, and the design and functioning of mechanical and electrical systems in buildings. •Both architectural and engineering education programs have been criticized for failing to give students experience working in teams to achieve common goals; teamwork is equated to cheating. In the spectrum between cooperation and competition only competition is reinforced. The greatest limitation is the horizontal structure of the curriculum.Architectural students do not get experience in dealing with the various engineering and construction specialties that play key roles in the design process or with the nontechnical entities that can influence a project, for example, zoning boards and financial institutions. (It is estimated that up to 60% of inputs to the construction process come from organisations who operate outside of the construction sector (Jaselskis et al, 2011)).

•Both architectural and engineering graduates have been criticized for lacking knowledge in business, economics, and management and the manner in which business considerations affect the design of facilities. They often lack the organizational and managerial skills to efficiently operate a business so that it is profitable. It limits their job opportunities - partly because of the inherent limitations of their educations and partly because many employers perceive engineers and architects as narrowly focused technocrats.•Young engineers and architects do not understand the problems, motivations, and concerns of their employers and clients, often causing them to propose designs that do not reflect sound business practices. The specific practice-related topics need to include marketing, proposal preparation, office management, and personnel matters.•Engineering programs have been increasingly faulted for failing to teach communication skills adequately. The importance of graphical, written, and oral communication skills to engineers has been emphasized. Engineering graduates often have poor graphics communication skills.•Graduates are prepared to do research but are not prepared to apply their knowledge to practical industry problems.•Although architecture and engineering graduates have had computer instruction, the potential of computers has not been fulfilled as effectively as it could be; most computer-aided engineering software, even computer-aided design software, is entirely oriented towards individual use and analysis rather than a team approach. Architecture students want to receive credit for their individual creativity, which might be sublimated in team projects. •The writing and speaking skills of recent engineering and architectural graduates fall short of desired level.

Complaints about faculty with respect

to construction education

Many faculty members have become so research oriented that they have lost interest in teaching generally and teaching undergraduates in particular

Many faculty members are unable to teach design and technology because they have little or no practical experience outside of the academic world and Many faculty are poor

teachers because they have received no training in education

Leapfrogging means to jump over obstacles to achieve goals and to get ahead of the competition or the present state of the art through innovative, time-and-cost-saving means.

the concept of leapfrogging is being used with respect of sustainable development for

developing countries as a theory of development which may accelerate development by skipping inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more

polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones ( for example, the adoption of solar energy technologies instead of creating an energy infrastructure based on fossil fuels, or jump to wireless phones, saving the cost of deploying an expensive copper wire system).

Leapfrog development in education has many advocates, especially in China.

Types of leapfrog education

Contents of leapfrogging Basic characteristics

Leapfrog in time Using less time than incumbents.Macro education

Leapfrog in space Cooperation within region, country, the world. Sharing of educational resources.

Leapfrog in quality Advanced educational content and pedagogy

Leapfrog in the area of curriculum development

Projecting future developments.

Micro education

Leapfrog in the starting point of teaching

Starting teaching at the level of potential development (zone of proximal development).

Leapfrog in the rate of growth on individual students

Individual guidance, constant leapfrogging over actual level of development of individual students.

Table 1 Types of leapfrog development in education

Source: Modified from Cao (2008).

How can construction education in

Nigeria benefit from leapfrogging

strategies?

Source: Leveraging The “Networked” Teacher (2009).

Technology is moving higher education from the traditional campus of “brick and mortar” to the electronic classroom of “wire and chip.” Digitized notes and past examination questions with solutions and marking schemes.

Digital and digitized classroom

no longer must students physically travel to a construction project site to observe and hear construction operations

Real-time video and audio can be delivered from active construction projects to a remote classroom through the internet.

ICT dilutes the “tyranny” of geography

Monitoring and analysis of construction projects by using imagery gathered by web-enabled, digital cameras of fixed location transmitting video through the internet.

Globally networked organization of engineering and construction education institutions each sharing the unique engineering and building techniques of their respective part of the globe with design and construction students located around the world.

virtual project tours and virtual supervision systems, simulation, 4D modeling

Individualization of learning programs; voice and facial recognition technology to determine if the person is successfully processing and absorbing the information

Gamification of the teaching and learning

According to Olotuah, Daisiowa, Adedeji1 and Odeyale (2012), only 29.65% of practicing architects in Nigeria learnt Computer-Aided Design (CAD) during their course of architectural study; half of them (57.58%) had their first contact with CAD after their course of architectural study, while 12.77% have not learnt to use CAD.

There is a huge discrepancy between student and faculty rates of adoption of ICT. Often the educators are playing a catch-up role. Students often develop information technologies skills from recreational use and not as a result of

course requirements. There is noticeable gap in the use of design software use between different professional courses, with

architecture programmes leading the way. Students and faculty often adopt the use of computer only when it is an absolute necessity. Curriculum for many construction education programmes is increasing becoming obsolete. Teaching of computer aided design (CAD) and other computer applications is often as a result of

personal initiative by faculty. This is a reflection of rigid system of curriculum changes. Top down approach in curriculum development is not efficient and in adoption of ICT most of the time

is not sustainable. While there are a number of academic staff, arguably the younger ones, who willing to be trained,

there exist a group of staff who are unwilling to try out the technology. Most teacher professional development in ICTs are heavy on “teaching the tools” and light on “using

the tools to teach”.

Absorptive capacity Inadequate ability to recognize, place value upon, internalize and apply new knowledge

Attitudes and perception

Acceptability, perceived needs based on a needs analysis, attitudes towards technology, concepts of development, and focus on the problems to be solved (i.e. being people driven and problem-oriented)

Cultural and community issues

Language, cultural views towards technology, sharing of resources within the community, appropriateness of a specific technology within a given culture or community, literacy requirements, gender issues and access issues

Legal and ethical issues Privacy, confidentiality, security, malpractice potential, insurance, jurisdiction, copyright, patents for new technologies and treatments, other intellectual property issues

Technical issues Access to electricity grid and alternative power supplies, powerschedules and reliability, UPS back-ups, ongoing maintenance of computers. Inappropriate access devices and inappropriate Internet technologies including low bandwidth. Insufficient language and cultural adaptation of content and the digital divide.

Environmental issues Effects of weather, temperature, humidity and dust on equipment.Security and accessibility of equipment. Isolation, transport issues

Sustainability issues Ongoing upgrades of technology, ongoing costs, cost-effectivenessPractical international issues

Corruption, borders and customs in equipment transport, nationally-imposed barriers to information access or dissemination or to information privacy, donor-imposed barriers, time zones and communication issues of working in remote geographical areas

Barriers to leapfrogging technologies in developing countries

Source: modified from McConnel, H. (u.d.)

Inequality in higher education capabilities for institutions and individuals tends to undermine investigation into global public goods.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest participation rate for higher education in the world (6%) (Unterhalter, 2012).

The popular movement to achieve world class ranking amongst Nigerian Universities suggests the need for “tunneling through” to overcome the world inequalities in global higher education by adopting best world practices in teaching and flexibility of curriculum content changes.

Higher education in Nigeria has the potential to produce graduates for construction industry that would meet international requirements and be equipped to face global construction competitiveness arena

“leapfrogging” and “tunneling through”

THANK YOU