Keppel Endorses Program For Teaching in Nigeria

A plan designed to send Harvard graduates to teach secondary school in Nigeria would be in the best interests of the new nation, Francis Keppel '38, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, said last night. Keppel was a member of the Ashby Commission, an international group of experts which presented recommendations for Nigeria's educational system to the country's new federal government.

The Ashby Commission proposed a plan which it called "LEAP"--Loan-Educational Aid Program. Under the plan, the Nigerian government would send natives to colleges in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth countries, and the United States, and at the same time would import British and American teachers to supply existing needs.

The aim of the Ashby Commission's proposal would be a self-sufficient Nigerian secondary school system by 1970. Nigeria would send its natives abroad to be trained for high school teaching at the rate of 600 a year for seven years. By 1966, American-and British-educated Nigerians would be returning to their country in fairly large numbers, and the need for imported instructors would steadily decrease.

More Schools Needed

Keppel emphasized that Nigeria "must expand its secondary schools rapidly in the next ten years, in order to be able to produce a number of reasonably highly educated people."

But, in this period when expansion of secondary education is so important, Keppel said, "we do not have in Nigeria people qualified to teach in secondary schools." The Ashby Commission plan would provide "a number of British-American teachers to fill in while Nigerians are being trained."

The Ashby program is "not in competition" with plans such as the one put forth recently by Leon D. Bramson, instructor of Social Relations, Donald J. Eberly, assistant director of the International Student Office, and Paul E. Sigmund, Jr., instructor in Government, Keppel said.