Former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Emeritus Peter Okebukola, has launched a fresh methodology for delivering Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education across Africa.

The innovation, known as the Model-And-Surpass Pedagogy (MSP), was formally presented at the 2025 International Research Group (IRG) conference, co-hosted by the Commonwealth Association of Science, Technology and Mathematics Educators (CASTME), which ended on 18 September. The pedagogy was unveiled by Professor Jomo Mutegi, past president of the US-based National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST), before participants from countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Ghana, The Gambia, Finland, Mauritius, Burundi and Sierra Leone.

Explaining the rationale, Okebukola—who in 1992 became the first African to win UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for Science Communication—criticised the wholesale adoption of Western teaching methods that, he argued, do not always suit Africa’s cultural context. “The lacklustre performance of our students in STEM can be attributed, at least in part, to this methods mismatch. The goal of my efforts is to elevate achievement and improve attitudes towards STEM,” he said.

MSP encourages students to study the lives and achievements of great scientists—at least one of them African—then model their methods and strive to surpass them. Structured in seven steps, the pedagogy blends history, critical discussion, experiments, and group work to cultivate curiosity, resilience, and innovation among learners. A team of researchers from Nigeria, Ghana, The Gambia, and Sierra Leone under the Africa Centre of Excellence for Innovative and Transformative STEM Education (ACEITSE), Lagos State University, has already begun testing the model.

Okebukola, who earlier developed the widely adopted Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) in 2015, said MSP would help Africa achieve the African Union’s Agenda 2063, noting, “The days of Africa playing second fiddle in STEM enterprise will soon be over.” He also revealed that his team, in collaboration with the National Association of Artificial Intelligence Practitioners (NAAIP), is working on a new teaching approach built on an Africanised AI framework.

The conference also featured keynote lectures by international scholars and fellowship awards to distinguished educators, including Okebukola himself, in recognition of his lifelong contributions to science education reform.