AUSTIN, Texas, March 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Conventional education, no matter how good the quality, has proven insufficient for making rapid development happen in post-colonial countries. The evidence is that over many generations, thousands of citizens in these countries have graduated higher education. Yet, underdevelopment remains.
According to Samuel Odunsi Sr., founder of Human Rethink, that is because higher education is incomplete for developing countries. "Development is a subset of the cultures of developed countries, including China. Higher education appears to work for these countries because it is built on implicit cultural factors not specifically taught in or out of the classroom. So for developing countries with different cultures, standard higher education curricula seems to impart only the technical knowledge of development. It does not impart the implicit knowledge needed to effectively express technical knowledge as sustainable development on a consistent basis."
Odunsi compares this implicit knowledge with the use of language. A language that even developed countries have failed to recognize. "For a skill set that is passively transmitted only with culture, its expression as economic development is so pervasive and enduring in developed countries and among their worldwide diaspora, it’s far more useful to view its acquisition and expression by individuals as a language.
The clarity gained from this approach suggests that "developing countries cannot develop no matter how hard they try because what will make development happen is similar to a foreign language with no means to learn it."
Odunsi sees this new paradigm as "the long-awaited evolution of thought in this area of inquiry," and urged developing countries, multilateral organizations, and development agencies to "make it the decisive next step for solving underdevelopment at the core level instead of just addressing symptoms."
He notes also that the 2018 World Bank Report, Learning to Realize Education’s Promise, made "a valiant effort in this direction, but with no measurable impact." The report warned of a so-called learning crisis or learning poverty and concluded that for developing countries, schooling is not the same as learning.
Odunsi recommends that "a more useful conclusion to the World Bank Report is that test scores are less a measure of student learning. They are mainly the measure of a student’s ability to accurately interpret and express the foreign language of the Western-style economic model which is dominant in every country regardless of culture." The job of education in developing countries is to impart this language
Whether it’s seen as a language deficit or not, Odunsi asserts that the essence of underdevelopment is the scarcity of effective managerial leadership. The Implicit Curriculum of Higher Education, the solution proposed by Human Rethink, is the answer for that. Aimed at solving the underdevelopment problem from the inside out, "the curriculum systematically imparts the language of the economic model to students with the resources of higher education so that indigenous graduates can then supply the leadership their country desperately needs for real development instead of relying on expatriate managerial leadership that’s in short supply and largely unaffordable."
About Human Rethink
Human Rethink is a research organization founded by Samuel Odunsi Sr. Our purpose is to end the problem of underdevelopment in our world so that the majority of humanity can also experience the stability, security, and prosperity currently enjoyed by developed countries. Get more information at www.HumanRethink.org
Media Contact:
Samuel Odunsi Sr.
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SOURCE Human Rethink
