‘Critical thinking skills should drive sustainable development in Education’

Six months ago, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were meant to mitigate the failings of and consolidate the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The 17 SDGs are designed to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure inclusive prosperity. These call for paradigm shifts and new approaches to education.

Koichoro  Matsuura, former director general of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) contended that, “education – at all its levels is not only an end in itself but is also one of the most powerful instruments for bringing about the changes required to achieve sustainable development.” Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Experts say the kind of education that would drive sustainable development is one that is hinged on the development of critical thinking skills, innovation and responsible use of resources. To achieve this, education would need to move in a new direction. This new direction entails experiential learning. “Students should be able to connect with society through their learning experiences” suggested Godson Ikiebey of First Bank Sustainability Centre, Lagos Business School.

Peter Okebukola, chairman, Crawford University governing council and former executive secretary of Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) stated, “Critical thinking skills are very important 21st Century skills. They are a broad spectrum of skills needed to survive in the world today. They include ability to play well in a team, creativity, and innovation. To promote critical thinking skills we need a curriculum that would foster the development of such skills. A curriculum that is overloaded by teachers and aims to cover the syllabus leads to cramming or rote learning”.

Okebukola proposes, “We need a curriculum that creates room for projects, which foster critical thinking skills. This is lacking at almost all levels of education. The only project you find is the one that happens at the end of your National Certificate of Education (NCE), National Development (ND), Higher National Diploma (HND) and Bachelors Degree, to mention only these. However, every course should have project that would enable you to think critically, that gives you a problem to solve, a problem that relates to real world situations. Remember, this is anchored around sustainable development, which calls for new solutions to both old and new problems. These new solutions should be such that would make us happy today, and also make future generations happy. We need to have a drastic reformatting of our curriculum.”

He added, such “curriculum would reduce the content load, provide projects in every subject and on every topic that would give the students opportunity to experiment, observe, and manipulate variables.”

Okebukola, further said, “This proposal would not work because the people, who are curriculum developers, are set in their ways. They are not amenable to any of these novelties. When you propose that this should be the format for the curriculum, they would tell you, this topic is important it must be there, that topic is important it must be there. Then you have all these topics loaded into the curriculum. There is no opportunity for students to carry on with the development of critical thinking skills.”

Odumosu Omolara, CEO Class Climax Consulting, suggests, “Our children are not thinking out of the box anymore. They are not working for real life solutions to problems. Knowledge when it is not in its application form is not knowledge and this is the essence of critical thinking skills in schools.

Omolara opined that “students should be able to apply the knowledge they acquire. Analytical skills have to be taught right from foundation years. When students are taught to reason from childhood, they are primed to go the extra mile in problem solving skills necessary to for the actualisation of sustainable development.”

She said, “Children should be taught to learn on their own. Rote learning is not knowledge. All the subjects and topics in the curriculum should be reviewed in a way and manner that would help students to translate ideas into real life situations. Learning should be in-depth; the curriculum should have subjects tailored towards solving real life problems. There should be an extension activity to every subject and every topic.

“An extension activity that would make the students use the principle, formula and concept they have been taught. Reasoning skills should be integral to every subject, topic and lesson. Ability to apply the knowledge acquired is demonstration learning has taken place and would the necessary stimuli for sustainable development”. 

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU