EDn

Ugochukwu Chuwkwujiaka sat down with Brian Rosenberg to discuss his ideas on the purposes of education, and how and why education needs to evolve especially in developing nations. 

Brian Rosenberg is currently President in Residence and Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  From 2003 until 2020, he served as the 16th President of Macalester College.  His articles on higher education appear regularly in The Chronicle of Higher Education and have also appeared in publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.  He serves as Senior Advisor to the President of the African Leadership University and as a member of the boards of the Teagle Foundation, the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University, and Allina Health.

Rosenberg received his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in English from Columbia University.  Prior to arriving at Macalester, he served as Dean of the Faculty at Lawrence University and as Professor and Chair of the English Department at Allegheny College.  He is the author of two books and many articles on Victorian literature.

His excellency, the former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who served as Nigeria's head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 2007 is our guest on this episode of Education in Developing Nations.

Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka sat down with Chief Olusegun at the former President's premises in Ogun State, we talk about his learning experience as a young man, his time as head of state and President and the work he did in education in that time.

Finally, the former President share key leadership insight for leading in periods of uncertainty, how to select the right people for a team and ensure they perform.

In June 2006, Dr. Ezekwesili became Minister of Education, Nigeria and led a comprehensive reform program within the education sector including restructuring and refocusing the ministry for the attainment of Education for All (EFA) targets and Millennium Development Goals and reduced the number of out-of-school-children in Nigeria in 2007.

Obiageli “Oby” Katryn Ezekwesili who was a candidate for the office of the President of Nigeria in the 2019 election, is an economic policy expert / Senior Economic Advisor, Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative (AEDPI) and Co-Founder of #BringBackOurGirls Movement, Nigeria as well as the #RedCardMovement. 

A Chartered Accountant/Consultant, She holds an MA in International Law and Diplomacy, an MA in Public Policy and Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She’s an honorary Doctor of Science degree, University of Lagos and in 2016 the University of Essex Business School awarded her an honorary Doctorate Degree in Business in recognition of her role in promoting economic and social justice in African countries.

Dr. Ezekwesili was recognized as one of Time-100 Most Influential People and by New York Times as one of the 25 Women of Impact, 2015. Albert Einstein's Foundations named her one of 100 visionaries featured in the 3D book "Genius:100 Visions of the Future”.

Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka sat down with Fred Swaniker, the founder of African Leadership Group to explore questions about education entrepreneur, the building and running of Africa Leadership University, and the key ingredient of a successful global education company. 

Fred is deeply passionate about Africa and believes that the missing ingredient on the continent is good leadership. In line with this, he has co-founded three organizations that aim to catalyze a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders: African Leadership Academy, African Leadership Network, and African Leadership University. 

Collectively, these institutions aim to groom 3 million leaders for Africa over a 50-year period. A passionate entrepreneur, Fred also served as Founder and CEO of Terra Education, a global education company that today provides leadership training to about 4,000 people annually at 46 sites in 20 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. 

Swaniker has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was listed by Forbes Magazine among the top ten young ‘power men’ in Africa. Fred has an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar, a distinction awarded to the top 10% of each graduating class. He holds a BA in Economics with a minor in Mathematical Statistics from Macalester College (magna cum laude). He was born in Ghana but has lived and worked in about 10 different African countries.

In this episode, George Werner who served in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration as Director-General of the Civil Service and Minister of Education talks about the Partnership School of Liberia, a strategy he initiated to provide effective education for Liberian children. We also discussed other key policies he initiated and insights for education ministers working to transform the education sector.

After leaving public service in March 2018, he has used his first-hand knowledge to assist other African and Asian leaders to implement transformative reform agendas aimed at developing human capital and maximizing demographic dividends for long-term economic growth. 

Werner currently serves on the World Bank Group Global Education Policy Dashboard Technical Advisory Board and is a member of the Expert Resource Group at the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Forum. He is also a member of the Atlantis Group at Varkey Foundation and a member of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center Board and serves on the Luminos Fund Advisory Board.

Chris Bradford is driven to build transformational educational institutions. Over the past fifteen years, Chris has guided the development of African Leadership Academy, which he co-founded with Stanford MBA classmate Fred Swaniker in 2004. African Leadership Academy seeks to transform Africa by identifying, developing, and connecting the continent’s future leaders.

In this interview, Chris breaks down the recipe for creating a world-class purpose-driven institution. 

Chris seeks to build strong organizations that transform societies by empowering individuals to reimagine what is possible for themselves and their communities. He relishes the process of “cathedral building”: ensuring that organizations are built to last and thrive beyond their founders.

Prior to ALA, Chris co-founded Terra Education and worked at organizations including Procter and Gamble, BCG, and the Broad Foundation. He also worked as a teacher at Oundle School, a boarding school in England. Chris is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and Stanford University (MBA, MA Education).

Henry Anumudu and I sat down to discuss his experience at the Teach for Nigeria program. We answered questions like who is a teacher? What is the role of a teacher in a developing community? We discussed ideas on key focus areas in teacher training to improve teaching outcomes in Nigeria public schools.

I interviewed Dzingai Mutumbuka, who currently serves as a member of the Governing Board for UNESCO's Paris-based International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) as a representative of the African Region.  For ten years, he served as the Chair of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), a network which brings together all African Education Ministers and representatives of donors supporting the development of education in Africa.

Prior to all this, Dzingai Mutumbuka participated in the struggle for Zimbabwe’s Independence rising through the ranks to the leadership of ZANU-PF.  Against odds, he organized a vibrant education for over 12, 000 Zimbabwean youth who were too young to join the armed fighters.  

He held major political appointments in Zimbabwe, including as an elected member of parliament.  He was the first Minister of Education and Culture at Zimbabwe’s Independence in 1980 and during his long tenure (nine years) from 1980 to 1989 developed one of the best systems of education in Africa.

After this, Dr Mutumbuka held various senior management positions in the education sector at the World Bank from 1990-2007

Currently, Dr Mutumbuka sits on a large number of boards dealing with education including, Results for Development, Teach for All, Educate! Big Win Philanthropy, Vitol Foundation and the Advisory Council of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program whose main objective is to support newly appointed Ministers of Finance and Planning, Education, Health, Youth, Gender from the Global South so that they can become transformative leaders and help their countries to benefit from the demographic dividend.

Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka sat down with Mary Burns, the senior technology and development expert at Education Development Center. She has over two decades of experience in education as a specialist in teacher professional development, online learning, instruction, curriculum development, and educational technology. We discussed the findings from the MasterCard foundation research which she led with Mohammad from the University of Mauritius that focused on the policy environment for ICTs in sub-Saharan Africa, their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. 

Mary shared the first set of questions the private sector, policymakers should ask when making a decision on education technology, the revolution of education technology, and a range of other key insights on education technology.

Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, the Ambassador of Finland to Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Cameroon and ECOWAS sat down with Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka to discuss the Finnish Education Evolution, the roles he played in education technology when he was the head of the research unit for Educational Technology at the University of Oulu. 

Michael Horn, Head of Strategy at the Entangled Group, Co-founder of the Clay Christensen Institute and Co-author of the book, Choosing College. Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka had a chat with Michael on what disruption in higher education means for Developing Nations.

Heather Beem, the CEO and founder of Practical Education Network (PEN) sat down with Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka to discuss STEM teacher training and how PEN is changing the narrative of teacher training programs in STEM.

I sat down with James Tooley, professor of education entrepreneurship and policy at the University of Buckingham, and the Co-Founder and Chairman of Omega Schools. We had an insightful conversation on low-cost private schools; exploring the current design, methodology, results and policy recommendation for low-cost private schools.