OLAWALE BAGS LEARNING CONFERENCE AWARD AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

A Nigeria scholar, Olaniran Sunday Olawale, has bagged an award at the Institute of Education, University of London in the U.K. He was the only Nigerian out of 17 scholars recently honoured by the university. Olaniran, who is presently pursuing his Master’s programme in Community Development in the Department of Adult Education, University of Ibadan, was conferred with the ‘Graduate Scholar Award’ by the institution after an international conference held last week in the U.K. Meanwhile, Olaniran has advocated for the speedy establishment of community radio stations across rural and urban communities in Nigeria if the goals of EFA will be realised by 2015. He made the call at the International Conference on Learning held at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK between 14 and 16 August, 2012. Olaniran, while delivering a paper, titled ‘Towards Meeting EFA Goals by 2015: The Role of Literacy-by-radio Programme in Nigeria,’ highlighted some significant contributions of the radio literacy programme of the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education (NMEC) to literacy promotion, especially in providing basic literacy skills for non-literate adults and out-of-school youths in Nigeria’s rural communities. Olaniran, a graduate of Adult Education from Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo State, started his literacy campaign in Abia State where he won NYSC honours award in 2011 for establishing Literacy Library for Adult Learners in the state. He pointed out some reasons why the literacy-by-radio programme is dying, which include funding problem and proliferation of commercial programmes and advertisements on Nigeria’s public radio stations at both federal and state levels where Literacy-by-radio programmes were aired. He, therefore, advised the Federal Government to take a critical step in establishing community radio which is seen as a formidable tool for poverty reduction and literacy promotion, especially among rural dwellers. “It does not speak well that only community radio stations available in Nigeria are the ones being operated by the universities which only covers university communities,” he said. This year’s Learning Conference theme is New Media, Multi-Modality, and Learning with well over 500 participants across the globe who dealt extensively with learning issues, especially in the context of global knowledge economy. http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2012/08/23/nigerian-bags-varsity-award-in-uk/