Grace Alele-Williams
mathematician (1932–2022)
Grace Alele-Williams (16 December 1932 – 25 March 2022) was a professor of mathematics education, who made history as the first woman to become vice-chancellor at the University of Benin and first Nigerian woman to receive a doctorate degree.
Quotes
edit- I tried to review the teaching of mathematics in schools, to make sure that the teachers understood the new concept which was already in use in Europe and America. I think we made an appreciable progress. But one of the saddest days of my life was the day the federal commissioner announced in 1978 that modern mathematics was abolished in schools.
- Let us stop this system of putting people in positions just because of the contacts they have. That is a major reason why we remain a poorly governed and undeveloped country.
- [3]Prof Grace Alele on allowing qualified people in position regardless of the gender.
- As long as we are celebrating a woman vice chancellor because she is the first or a woman chief judge because she is the first, then we have not arrived. We look forward to the time when we will have many women in such positions and we will be celebrating so many of them.
- [4] Prof. Grace in an interview in THISDAY Online, November 16, 2004.
- Ask yourself over and over again, has the Chibok affair become too late to think about?
- [5] Prof Grace Alele seeking for the return of Chibok girls in 2017.
- Play hard and keep straight, and continue getting quality education, well informed, so that in any situation you have something positive to contribute.
- [6] Prof in an interview on words to the young and elderly.
- To the elderly ones, you are retired but don't be tired. Just keep doing what you were doing.
- [7] Prof in an interview on words to the young and elderly.
- The excitement I felt on receiving the news from Professor Jubril Aminu (Minister of Education) had more to do with seeing it in terms of opening up the field for women than anything else. I saw it as an opportunity to show that women too could rise up to the occasion.
- [8]Her speech during the completion of her assignment as Vice chancellor of University of Benin in 2018.
- After creating the “political class,” journalists failed to set parameters for person in that class.
- [9] Speaking at a meeting organised by Initiative for Moral Rectitude in Society (IMRS).
- The experiments in the schools led many parents to think more about what their children learned at school and it is not too great a claim to say that the annual and end-of-term inservice courses for teachers led ministries of education to rethink their mathematics programme. In the case of Lagos State, the favourable demonstration effect of the Entebbe Mathematics program coinciding with the states' readiness to introduce a new syllabus led to the total acceptance of the project. In Lagos State, we believe we still have considerable work to do with the teachers. Teaching the teachers mathematics is a relatively simple task but changing their attitude and practice is harder. Several years of hard work are still necessary before we can truly claim that modern mathematics has come to stay.
- The Entebbe Mathematics Series have sometimes been dubbed American but this is to ignore the valuable contribution of the African participants, who feel keenly the African origin of the series. Moreover the whole exercise has provided an international forum for teaching and learning, unprecedented in the annals of education. Africans, working with Europeans and Americans, have produced mathematics texts good enough for use anywhere in the world. Mutual benefits have been derived by all concerned and the project has clearly contributed to international understanding.
- The African Mathematics Programme brought together Africans, Americans, and British educators in English-speaking African countries to consider changes in mathematics education in Africa. ... The African Mathematics Programme organized writing workshops in Africa that produced the Entebbe Modern Mathematics Series. Between 1962 and 1969, the African Mathematics Programme conducted annual eight-week writing workshops in Entebbe and Mombassa, and produced over 80 volumes of textual materials covering primary school, teacher training, secondary, and sixth-form mathematics.
- The role of the Nigerian University system as an instrument for cohesion, change and development in our nation. Today, as we lament the falling standard in education and the negative ethnicization and contraction of real quality educational opportunities, we might do well to go dust up that lecture from this great Nigerian to follow up on some of her proposals.
Quotes about Grace Alele-Williams
edit- The death of this renowned Nigerian scholar is a great loss to the academic community and the country.
- Aged 89, she was a woman of rare attributes, a disciplined and astute administrator who was not afraid to work with others. Her success as a vice chancellor showed that she has a strong character who could withstand any challenge. She excelled in the administration of the University of Benin in spite of the mounting opposition by the male staff.
- Her intellectual and practicable contributions to our projects and programmes went along to ensure the sustainability and continued relevance of the foundation.
- On the home front, she was firmly established as a matriarch of immeasurable value; a wife, mother, aunt and confidant. At 89, she lived a fulfilled life worthy of emulation by women and men alike. As she aged gracefully, she maintained her commanding presence and quiet dignity as a positive influence for human progress.
- As at the time she resumed in UNIBEN from Lagos following the tenure lapse of Adamu Baike, its former VC, the warring academics who wanted to occupy that exalted position were believed to have slunk into their scholarly recesses because there was little they could do about the federal government’s choice in the form of protest at the time.
