The Director of CLAREP and Head of English Language Department, Dr. (Mrs.) A. Esimaje, in this interview with the Communication and Brand Strategy Unit, speaks on the CLAREP’s activities, how value on paper qualification encourages plagiarism and how students can develop their reading and writing culture.
Excerpts:
Tell us about CLAREP?
CLAREP is an acronym and its stands for “Centre for Language Research and English Proficiency.” It is an educational, nonprofit, and non-Governmental organization.
What do you do as an organisation?
There are actually two major reasons why we set up this organization. From the name you have language research on one hand, and then you have English proficiency on the other hand. It involves all language related matters, research into how language can enhance productivity, research on how language can help socio- economic and political development of the nation, research on how language can be taught and how language can be understood. When we say language, we mean language broadly, not necessarily English Language but any research into any type of language.
Now the proficiencies part has to do with certifications, ensuring that people are proficient in the different skills of language. At the centre, we are licensed to teach languages like German, Spanish, and not just English. So we can teach proficiencies, and then people can write such exams as Test of English as a Foreign (TOEFL), International English Language testing system (IELTS) and other language proficiency exams. We focus on writing skills, speaking skills, reading skills, and any skill of language at all.
How old is the organization?
The organization is two years old.
What is your organization doing to ensure a lasting reading and writing culture in young Nigerians?
Some years ago the National Universities Commission (NUC), was so concerned about the reading culture of students in Nigerian universities and the fact that students are in school because they have to be here, they do not want to be in school.
You want to earn a living; you want to be counted among the socio-class so you go to school. There was a time I also asked who started the idea of school, so I asked that same question. So once exams are over, students forget whatsoever it is.
So NUC recommended that universities should begin reading clubs in order to encourage the development of reading culture. According to NUC, universities should also target young categories of children in nursery, primary and secondary schools to start reading clubs, so by the time these children get to the university, they are able to read and also love reading.
We have CLAREP Young Reader’s Club. The aim of reading club is supposed to be for readers but you know this is Nigeria so we have two groups of children; those who can read and those who cannot read and so we teach one group how to read and the other group how to love and enjoy reading. So as an organization we also help to develop the reading culture of students
What do you think is the major reason for plagiarism?
It’s easily the absence of knowledge; this is because you don’t copy what you know. If you know something you will write it, so it’s the absence of knowledge, the absence of requisite knowledge, relevant knowledge.
Most times it is not always the fault of the students who do that, it is the fault of the system. I believe that we are attaining towards a systematic failure, when students are not equipped with what it takes to write project and then it is mandatory for them to write project, so without the project they do not graduate yet they do not have what it takes to write it.
Now, they are forced to write it anyhow and one way to write it is to plagiarise or to use what I call academic vendors. These are people who put together this project for students. So they pay academic vendors and the vendors will source the material from different places and do what is called patch writing or what you call cut and paste. The student submits it and during defense the student is unable to defend it because the ideas are not original. The fault is not fully from the students that plagiarise, but the fault of the system that has failed to prepare the students sufficiently to write the project. It’s also failure of the society, the general society that place value on paper qualification.
That’s a systematic failure, why do we need to have foreign publications, when I travel out they do not ask for foreign publications, a lecturer that is in the UK is assessed based on what he has written in the UK, he is not told to publish in America, Germany, Nigeria. But then a different system produces a lecturer and a different system is used to assess the lecturer.
What should come first in your own opinion: writing or reading?
The first skill is listening followed by speaking and then followed by writing because the letters that you write are the letters that you use to form the words which you eventually read.
No, because reading feeds writing so they play complimentary roles the more you read, depending on what you read the better writer you will become but the foundation will have to be letters of the alphabets which you learn at the stage of reading, reading is so key, because in reading you learn more vocabulary, structure, you use for writing.
What is your advice for young writers and authors?
Well, I will like to say that because every writer is produced by the society, the motivation for writing should be from the society, and when you write even though many people write for pleasure, I often say write also because you want to meet a need. In the process of writing for whatever it is that makes you happy pass on a message and that message will be borne out of the need in your society. So look at your society, see what you can contribute through that skill that you have, through that gift that you have, ensure that what you write is not only for enjoyment but ensure that it also has a message.