From Augustine Omilo
History was made on the 16th day of August 2022 when the youngest Nigerian to have become a University auditor was accepted by the Admiralty University of Nigeria, ADUN. In the course of the interview conducted by a panel of some of the University’s professors and heads of departments, the President and Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Paul Omaji explained that a university auditor is a person admitted to attend classes in a school without an expectation of receiving academic credit or certificate for it.
The interview subjected Professor Chief John Azor, Jessica and her father, Prince Emmanuel Okonye to rigorous investigations that finally brought out the genius in the JSS1 student. Azor, a retired American professor of Educational leadership had earlier explained to the panel how he concluded that the young girl was a gifted child who is capable of being a university student without necessarily completing her post-primary school education in Nigeria.
In his response to some questions, Prince Okoye explained that he knew that his child was extraordinarily brilliant but did not dwell so much on it until Professor Alizor drew his attention to the details of Jessica’s intelligence quotient. On how he feels about the numerous calls he receives as a result of many people calling on him to send his daughter abroad for further studies, Prince Emmanuel said; “honestly, I love this girl so much. But if the will of God for me to allow her to leave home at this age, so be it. I believe a child does not belong to his or her parents alone as other reasonable adults can help in bringing her up properly”.
Since the publication of the outcome of the interview and the final admission of the 12-year-old girl as the youngest and first University auditor in the country was published in pointer newspapers, many Nigerians and non-Nigerians have been reacting to the feat. While many are applauding it, some are of the view that the “Jessica experiment” negates the cumulative academic learning system in Nigeria.
Leading the pack of those in support of the girl’s ability to skip classes is Professor Alizor whose business interests include the discovery and mentoring of young people to stardom through academic excellence. He spoke recently to reporters who visited Jessica in his house at Agbor, Delta state. According to him; the world’s record of the youngest university graduate at the age of 10, Master Michael Kearny who graduated from the University of South Alabama in 1994 is about to be broken by Laurent Simons who is set to graduate in December 2022 with a first degree in Electrical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
He added that there is nothing wrong with Jessica becoming a researcher before the age of nineteen, given her level of academic reasoning. Azor argues that the worst that may happen is for some learned adults like himself to engage the auditor in extra lectures to cover up whatever gap that may be created by her skipping classes. This, he says can be achieved, using Lev Vaggotsky’s education model of ‘Zone of Proximal Development, ZPD.
In the words of the retired professor; “Jessica is already doing well in class with 100 level students in subjects such as Calculus (mathematics), Chemistry, microbiology and general studies”. This fact was collaborated by Prince Okoye (Jessica’s father) who based his assertion on remarks he received from Jessica’s lecturers at the Admiralty University of Nigeria.
Speaking further, Azor delved into the American system of education where schooling is free at primary and post-primary levels. He added that both books and food are offered to pupils and students at this level for free while those who proceed to universities pay school fees according to what obtains in schools where they are admitted for studies even as those who cannot afford to pay fees are granted loans payable after six months of graduation from the universities. He finally expressed his wishes for any university abroad to admit Jessica into their school if Nigerian schools are not allowed to “experiment” on adventures such as developing geniuses into national assets at their early ages.
One of the lecturers at the Admiralty University who is also the dean of the faculty of mathematics, Professor Leonard Shilgba agrees that Jessica has performed well so far in his (Shilgba’s) mathematics classes, adding that he was expecting Jessica to submit her Calculus assignment at the time of the chat with him on phone.
However, David Okuringbe, a retired teacher and some others who also spoke on the matter think that skipping classes does more harm than good to children as they stand to lose vital knowledge embedded in the omitted classes. They hinged their argument on the fact that there are aspects of the educational development of a child that require the patience of teachers at primary and secondary school levels.
