At a time in Nigeria when women were
led to believe that the most they can achieve is to be a wife and a mother, a
child was born. She was named Grace Alele.Born on December 16,1932 she grew up
to become not only a wife and a mother but also the first female Vice-Chancellor
in Nigeria thereby proving wrong the
earlier held belief.
Her story is one that inspires
and draws awe. Professor Grace Alele-Williams had her early education at
Government School, Warri between 1939 and 1949 and Queens College, Lagos
between 1945 and 1949.She then moved on to the University College (presently
University of Ibadan) for her first degree between 1949 and 1954.She was
amongst the second set of students at the University and was also one out of
the ten girls in that set. For the next three years, she taught mathematics at
Queen’s School, Ede
Osun State.
With financial assistance from
the Nigerian Head of Service, she left for the USA to teach and study at the
University of Vermont as a graduate assistant between 1957 and 1959. Bored by
the cold weather, the segregation in the rural setting and America’s
re-evaluation of its science curriculum at that time due to the perceived
Russian scientific threat, she moved to the University of Chicago in 1959 and
obtained her PhD in Mathematics education in 1963 thereby becoming the first
Nigerian woman to be awarded a doctorate.
Her coming back to Nigeria in
1963 was not with the proud head of being the first Nigerian woman to be awarded
a doctorate but it was with the big idea of revolutionizing the teaching of
Mathematics in Nigeria. Having seen the revolution work in America, she was convinced that the
same idea will work in her country.
Starting in Ibadan where she was
based as a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, she worked with Grade II
teachers in a programme popularly referred to as train the trainer. She
extended the programme to Lagos and Benin. In 1965,
she joined the University of Lagos and was able to convince the Ministry of
Education in Lagos
about the programme.By then she was working with about 100 teachers who were
expected to go back to their respective schools to train their own teachers.
The programme went beyond Nigeria
to other African countries like Kenya
and Uganda though later she
concentrated the programme on West Africa.
The execution of her plans was
not without hitches here and there. For example, the concept she developed was
to go beyond training the teachers to changing the Mathematics curricula in Nigeria.
This meant that the textbooks being used would have to be re-written. However,
the three major publishing companies in Nigeria were not taken in by the
idea since according to them; they had invested so much capital in re-writing
their Mathematics textbooks.
Even though the textbook ‘Modern
Mathematics’ was eventually published, she was to face another obstacle. The
then Minister of Education under General Obasanjo’s regime, Ahmadu Alli
announced the ban of the use of the textbook in schools. His reason was that
the textbook confused teachers and students.
But did all these stop her from
pursuing her vision? Of course not. In her own words, ‘I grieved for some time…,
then picked myself up, dusted myself and continued my work’. Though the
textbook was banned, she continued working with the teachers and she also wrote
papers on her works. It was her work in this area that earned her a
professorship in 1974 making her the first female Professor of Mathematics
Education in Nigeria.
Between 1965 and 1985, she taught
at the University of Lagos and directed affairs at the University’s Institute
of Education where she introduced innovative non degree programmes to benefit
teachers. Many of the certificate recipients were older women working as
elementary school teachers.
In 1985 under the administration
of General Ibrahim Babangida, she was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Benin.However; she had the option of turning down the offer since
as of then there was no woman VC for her to learn the ropes from. But she
accepted the position thereby becoming the first female Vice Chancellor of any African University.
In a 2004 interview she granted
to THISDAY online, she says about her appointment: ‘The excitement I felt on
receiving the news from Professor Jubril Aminu (the then Minister of Education)
had more to do with seeing it in terms of opening up the field for women than
anything else’. The appointment for her was an opportunity to show that women
can handle such top positions and also deliver on them. She was also aware of
the high expectations of the womenfolk and was therefore not prepared to fail.
Though many people applauded her appointment,
some others were not happy and meanings were read into every action she took as
the VC perhaps because she was a woman and some people felt she had invaded
their turf. She was called different names and some saw her as an outsider
imposed on them by the military junta while others simply said she was
unqualified for the job.
All these accusations did not weigh
her down to the point of not doing her duty. Her credentials were enough to
tell everyone including her accusers that she was qualified for the job but she
was not going to let only her credentials speak for her. She went to work. By
the end of her second term, the voices accusing her had been silenced. The physical structures built during her
administration spoke for her. They include the Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge, Bursary
and Administration Block, Faculty of Law and College of Medical Sciences.
At the end of her second tenure
in 1991, she did not retire but returned to the University of Lagos. She later
became a director in Chevron Nigeria and also headed a committee at the Nigerian
University Commission. Professor Alele-Williams was a member of the National
Planning Commission. Throughout these periods, she continued with her
researches and went on presenting papers and her profile continued to rise.
This 77 years old mother of five
and grandmother to six is not resting but continues to seek avenues through
which women can be educated on various subjects. Her drive stems from her
belief that one cannot live a fulfilled life unless you add to someone else’s
joy, comfort and security.
Whereas others would have been
satisfied being just average, Professor Grace Alele-Williams decided that the
very top was for her and she went about
working hard to achieve just that and in doing that became a trailblazer.
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