An educationist, literary, gender and cultural studies specialist, author and the second female professor of mass communication in Nigeria, Professor Kate Omenugha is the Anambra State Commissioner for Basic Education and the only commissioner in the education ministry to complete two terms with a state governor. During her spell, the state has beaten the rest of Nigeria in debating competitions and the world in academic competitions, while making huge, enviable investments in student and teachers’ capacity development along the way. Henry Akubuiro chatted with her in Awka, Anambra State capital, on the academic ‘miracle’ she performed.
What determined the career path you chose?
Growing up and going through secondary school and college of education, I had wanted to be a professor. I really liked academics. My idea then was to live on campus with my husband and study with him.
Also, I nursed the ambition of being a lawyer, but my father had this idea that female lawyers hardly marry, and dissuaded me. When we were growing up, female lawyers were looked at as women who were never obedient at home, and stuff like that. So I went to a college of education, where I had distinction in English and the best graduating student in the Department of English, College of Education, Nsugbe, and it was the only distinction they had then. From there, I entered the university to study a two-year programme to read English Education. I was the best student in drama. By the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to be a professor in every sense of the word.
But one of my lecturers did something amazing. He tore my referee form when I was applying for a sandwich programme, which led me to rediscover my love for mass communication, and I went on to have both master’s and PhD in Mass Communication. It was after my master’s in 1998 that I got a job as an assistant lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, in 1998, in the Department of Mass Communication after I had already spent 10 years teaching in secondary school (I left as principal 3).
How did you adjust from the classroom to the administrative room as a commissioner in Anambra State?
It was actually very simple for me. Apart from navigating the intricacies of civil service and politics, it was a smooth transition, because administration is the same everywhere. I was the Head of the Mass Communication Department at Unizik for six years. I was the Director of Unizik FM before I was appointed commissioner. I have held a lot of responsible posts in the university. I have been a classroom teacher —that’s where my education career background came into play.
I always tell people to have a degree or diploma in education. It gives you that ability to understand human beings and deal with people. So it was easier for me to navigate some of the challenges we had initially, because I had an education background. I have been there in the classroom, and I know when a teacher is misbehaving and pretending to be good. What I did was to demystify commissionership. I was out of my seat seeing what was happening, relating with the children, the people, head teachers and principals. I was there on the field. The challenge we have with some commissioners is that they work from the office; they don’t go to the field. Because we were dealing with human beings, I needed to go out and see what was happening. I could feel the pulse of the education family. I could see their challenges. My children also went to public schools. Sometimes I argued it out in the State Exco meetings. I must tell you, it’s been a worthwhile experience, because I could relate with them. I visit schools.
I first started as the Commissioner for Education (in charge of all the levels of education in the state). In the second tenure, the ministry was divided into two, and I became the Commissioner for Basic Education. Sometimes I live it out, like when Regina Pacis Girls won the Technovation Pitching Challenge at the Silicon Valley, I wore their school uniform. They couldn’t believe that. For them, it was a lot of pride that I wore their school uniform to identify with them. I was just being myself. I have no pretenses about me.
Did you see it coming when you were made a commissioner?
I was asked to submit my CV to the governor, which I did. When he invited me, he told me he didn’t know me personally, but everybody he enquired about me spoke something positive about me, and I am glad I didn’t disappoint him. Chief Dr. Willie Obiano is a very wonderful person. He believes in me. He trusts me, and I have tried not to betray that trust. I am glad he is happy with me. Now, we are going about commissioning so many projects. In 2015, he judged me as his best commissioner and gave me a cash award, and, in 2018, when we were starting the governor’s second tenure, he told me he was sending me to Harvard for leadership training, and that’s the greatest gift I received from this administration.
You are regarded as the longest serving education commissioner in Anambra history, spending eight years cumulatively. What made it possible?
I was just doing my work. I was very professional. His Excellency would attest to that. I have no time for side talks. Like Governor Willie Obiano would say, “your eyes on the ball”. I was very ethical, and these are things that His Excellency likes. I interpreted his mandate —”that the learning needs of all must be met through equitable distribution of resources and learning of lifelong skills and to ensure we are one of the three top states with the lowest illiteracy rate.” So I sat down to interpret that mandate —what does that mean when he said “the learning needs of all must be met”? It means no child should be left behind. What does it mean when he says “lifelong skills?” That’s why this administration ran what we called “Education for Employment”. That’s why we talked about entrepreneurship. That’s why we talked about technical and vocational education. That’s why we talked about human capacity building. I drove that for His Excellency. We looked at education from three pronged areas: infrastructure, teachers/students welfare, and human capacity. In the GTCs, we have these 750 beds capacity hostels across three geopolitical zones, from Onitsha to Umuchu. The idea is to bring back the boarding system. You have been to Umuchu —they are good in brick and block molding, welding and fabrication. That means somebody from faraway Umueri can come there to live and learn. We are working towards making all of them full technical colleges so that we won’t have subjects unrelated to the technical field. We have brought all the equipment and done the accreditation at Umuchu so that it can run as a technical college.
When you set out initially as the education commissioner, how did you strive to make an impact?
As I said, the first thing I did was to interpret the education mandate of His Excellency. The second thing he told me was to ensure education that was credible. So we started to change the psyche of our students. We have our dictum: “Nothing is impossible”, “I do not accept failure”, “Yes I can”. We drove that. When, in 2014, His Excellency had the first retreat with members of his Exco and other political appointees, we developed the 10 Shared Values. We drove that: “To make a positive impact on everyone I meet and everywhere I go; to be a solution provider and not part of the problem to be solved; to be a role model worthy of emulation; to be my best in all I do, particularly the things I am naturally good at; to do the right things at all times; to value time and make the best use of it; to care and show respect through my words and action; to cautiously build a great legacy starting now, today and everyday; to live the life of integrity and honour and to make my family, my state and my name proud. So help me God.”
In all the schools in Anambra, children can recite the 10 Shared Values. For us, education is about ideology. It’s what you believe that you profess, and what you profess that you do. We had to change the psyche of the students so that they believe in themselves so that they know that nothing is impossible and they can only be the light of the nation. To move that, we also developed our education anthem where we all say no to exam malpractice, indiscipline, drugs and miracle centres. Children chant that.
Each time they go for competitions, I will tell them about the Shared Values —you have to make yourself, your state and nation proud; go and win that laurel. That’s what the state governor told the girls of Regina Pacis, Onitsha, when I brought them to the Exco before they left for the United States. He told them the whites don’t have two heads, so they should go there, beat them and receive a big reward. And he did that, giving them a financial largesse and paid their school fees up to university level, and they stand there in trust with the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. In the education ministry, we say we want to drive the education process with teachers that are professional, responsible and responsive. We also focused on teachers and how to get them to queue in line.
In 2015, we started the drive for computer literacy, the drive for teachers to move to transformational leaders. I insisted that every teacher must have a laptop —One Teacher One Laptop Policy. Though we had resistance, teachers complied. Today, they are happy about it. In fact, one of the teachers wrote to say: “Continue to force us to improve ourselves.” That kind of human capacity development is amazing, because the standard of the students can’t be higher than that of the students. The students look up to the teachers as role models. We also exposed them to international exposures. We have taken our teachers to Singapore, Dubai, Indonesia, UK and beyond. It opened a whole lot of horizon for them. Travelling is the highest education you can have.
His Excellency ensured many teachers won laurels. A lot of teachers have been winning laurels. You remember Clement Okodo, who won the overall Best Teacher in Nigeria in 2017. The edge he had over his rival from another state was his owning a laptop and being computer literature and internet savvy, and he was just teaching at Abagana, a rural area. It wasn’t easy, but we were able to do that.
There was a time we trained 10,000 teachers in Anambra within two-three weeks. When Leo Stan Eke of Zinox Computer came, he couldn’t believe that a teacher who was exposed for just three weeks was speaking the language of computers. He gave the woman a laptop. When we started it in 2015, the level of the primary school teachers was still low. Today, the teachers understand computer applications. This is human capacity development at its best.
When in 2018, a head teacher in Awada Primary School 4, Obosi, Amala Ezenwa, won the Best Administrator award on World Teachers’ Day, October 5, like Okodo, he came back with a vehicle. Sister Onwuadi came back with a vehicle, too. Flora Azikiwe, Neni, won the Best Public School in Nigeria. They came back with a school bus. We also won The Best Private School Teacher in Nigeria. We had Izuegbu Samuel, who won the third Best Teacher in Nigeria in Owelle Ezukala, a rural area.
In 2020, Grundtvig International Secondary School, Oba, won the Overall Best Private Secondary School in Nigeria. In 2021, we won the Best Teacher in Nigeria again through a teacher at Modebe Secondary School, Onitsha. We also won the 2nd Best Administrator in Nigeria. We also won the 4th best Primary School in Nigeria. We won the 5th Best Teacher in Nigeria. So we have done very well. These awards are a reflection of the confidence we have built in our teachers — the drive to be the best in all we do. Because I have been there long enough, we were able to make an impact. Quality education was paramount for us. We have zero tolerance for exam malpractice. Waec has commended us for being the first state in Nigeria to use IP cameras to monitor students in exams.
The Teaching On Air programme was also a novel one when it made its debut during the pandemic…
Yes, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak. Schools were shut down by March 24. On April 1, we started teaching on air. My background in communication helped me to know that, with radio, you can reach the remotest part of the state. But Anambra Broadcasting Service did a marvelous job, streaming it alive. It was on YouTube, Facebook, and other ICT platforms. Our teachers became global teachers, because we were receiving comments from all over the world. That’s creativity —thinking outside the box. Before I came up with that idea, I sat alone, reflecting on what to do. “If everything can wait, education can’t wait,” I said to myself. I reached out to the MD, ABS, and shared my thoughts with him, and he bought them. I got Patrick Okeke to be the coordinator, and he quickly got the physics teacher to start it. There were initial mistakes, but we got fast training for them on speaking on the radio. We kept on fine tuning. At a certain point, we started using PowerPoint, and we kept getting better. The teachers became excited. It was a risky time, too, for there were no movements, and the state government had to give us tags to move about. The teachers deserve commendations for taking up the challenge easily, and that’s about building their confidence. We developed quality assurance measures, created Whatsapp groups subject by subject, with veterans to oversee what the teachers intended to teach. So mentorship came in. From there, we were able to learn some of the mistakes teachers make in the classroom. It was actually a learning period for us.
The Anambra State cutoff mark for unity school in Nigeria has consistently remained one of the highest in Nigeria, compared to many states. Are you comfortable with this development?
I don’t know whether I am comfortable or not. The bane of this society is that sometimes we allow the quota system to destroy the good intentions we have. The truth is that Anambra State is on the top. I believe education shouldn’t be politicised, because you are not even helping those you are giving lesser cutoff marks. They will not have the drive and push to do the right thing. That has been the challenge in Nigeria. For me, I insist on merit. If this is an exam and you don’t pass it, there is no shortcut to passing it. They have to energise themselves.
I will give you an example. We have a special scholarship scheme that Governor Obiano initiated three-four years ago. In 2015, we commissioned a research, led by professor Amazigo, where we looked at some local government areas in the state —Anambra West, Anambra West, Ogbaru, Ayamelum, and Awka North. These local governments have some similarities: they are majorly agrarian societies; they have a gendered culture; their poverty index are quite high; their literacy level is also low —as low as 30-something (but if you look at Anambra State as a whole, we talk of 90-something, but when you disaggregate, you notice that they have a big disadvantage) — their girls marry at the age of 11, 12. They prefer to have girls as hands in their farms —they are majorly farmers and fishermen. Theirs is a multi sectoral kind of challenge. This is a society where you give them treated mosquito nets and they use them to cover their yams. Teachers hardly stay there, because they are not friendly, and they don’t have teachers of their own to fill the gaps. That’s why the governor started giving 20 percent of the teachers’ basic salary for those who agree to teach there. Things as simple as sandals or pencils could keep students away from schools. That’s why we decided to offer a full scholarship or conditional cash transfer whereby we give the parents incentives to allow their children to go to school. This is a society where students all go home during farming seasons.
So we thought and said nature and nurture are two different things that make a human being. To uproot them from that society, we had to take them to boarding schools and public mission schools. We started with 107. Now we have 71 left. If you see the children now, they are more refined. In fact, one of them made it to the honour’s board in one of the schools, Saint John’s Science and Technical College, Alor. You see how we have given them the opportunity to grow? That’s what human capital development is all about.
How did you earn the sobriquet of Madam Integrity?
Is that what they call me? (laughs) I grew up in a deeply Catholic family, having what I call a Catholic conscience, which is very important. So it’s a question of giving everybody his or her own due and insisting you do the right thing. It’s not that I am strict, but I want you to do the right thing. I am not a saint, anyway, but I try to do the right thing. Kate Omenugha is a brand, so I can’t begin to change myself. The governor said, “Everybody I asked about you said good things about you when I wanted to make you a commissioner; I am glad they are still saying the same thing 8 years after.” I take it as a positive thing.
Sometimes some people come to me to write referees, and I tell them, “If I write what I know about you, you won’t like it”. And they will run away. So I don’t just write for the fun of writing. I like people to do the right thing. I can’t employ a teacher who has fallen below the standard we have set. Governor Obiano understands this. He supports me. I want to thank him for giving me the opportunity to serve the state for 8 years and to give our students confidence to excel. Waec wrote to us in 2017 and last year commending us for the credible conduct of exams.
We are organising “Celebrating Excellence: Our Eagle, Our Pride”, which is our parting gift to all of us in our education family. We want to celebrate these people who have won awards over the years.
Eight years at the helm of the education ministry, how would you like to be remembered?
As you said, as Mrs Integrity; as the person who brought herself down to the level of the children she was looking after. I go on low-cut, because I don’t want to look too glamorous. I want the children to see me as somebody they can relate with. I would love to be remembered as that woman who brought passion into education, that woman who developed the capacity of the teachers (in 2015, we beat Kaothon Convent School in the first Nigeria-Singapore debate), we went to Indonesia for the World Debate Championship and, in the preliminary debate, we beat Barbados.
Don’t forget in 2018, the Regina Pacis Girls won gold in the Silicon Valley, while Saint John’s Technical College, Alor, went to Tunisia in IFEC (International Festival of Engineering and Science). Anambra State Government now has the President School Debates cup for keeps, having won it thrice consecutively. That goes to show that the promise the state governor gave to the students of Anambra to give them education that is globally competitive has worked.
Finally, where do you go from here? Are we expecting the first female governor of Anambra or another female senator from the state?
(laughs) I am not really a politician. I will quietly go back to the university and continue from where I stopped. I am a professor of mass communication, the second female professor of mass comm in Nigeria. And if I am called again to serve, God helping me, if I am In good health, I surely will.