But is there no
solution? Are we forever constrained to have a dysfunctional education system?
I believe the answers are available with deep, strategic thinking and discourse.
In order to arrive at a workable solution, it will require the active
participation and commitment of all the stakeholders, from the government, to
ASUU, parents and students, the NUC and perhaps donor agencies and NGO’s.
The government must
begin to see education for its true importance to national development.
Education is arguably the most important and strategic tool a country can equip
its people with. Education is the knowledge of putting one's potentials to
maximum use. One can safely say that a human being is not in the proper sense
till he is educated. This importance of education is basically for two reasons.
The first is that the training of a human mind is not complete without
education. Education makes man a right thinker. It tells man how to think and
how to make decisions.
The second reason for
the importance of education is that only through the attainment of education is
man enabled to receive information from the external world; to acquaint him
with past history and receive all necessary information regarding the present.
Without education, man is as though in a closed room and with education he
finds himself in a room with all its windows open towards the outside world.
From the Senator at
the National Assembly to the vulcaniser on the streets, a good quality
education is vital. A good education has the capacity to lift a people out of
poverty by equipping them with the means of making the best possible choices
for their lives. A good education enables people to think imaginatively and
creatively (which appears to be lacking in Nigeria, especially in public
service), it enables them to act in more socially responsible ways and even
make better decisions about their health.
The poor quality of
our education is partly responsible for so many of the socio-economic issues
which pervade our country today. With a better education, maybe so many of the
garage boys and touts we have on the streets wouldn’t be there today. They
would be able to better make smarter decisions as to what to do with their
lives. The Boko Haram menace that has been thrust upon us is partly due to the
un-education of millions of northern children in the eighties and nineties! If
many of them had got a decent education I am sure that majority (certainly not
all, as Mutallab has shown us) of those involved in suicide bombings today
would probably have decided to chart another path for themselves. A better
educated police would be able to think and act more proactively to prevent
crime. A well educated school leaver would be able to identify career options
available to him, without necessarily focusing on a white collar job. A
carpentry shop owned by a well educated person would be able to appreciate the
need to constantly improve and make use of available technologies to facilitate
his business. It is really a sign of our failure that we have so many artisans
in Nigeria who are not able to take advantage of electric tools in doing their
work due to their high level illiteracy. A carpenter who uses electric saws,
planers etc is likely to do a much better job and faster for that matter than
one who saws wood by hand. Even a well-educated taxi driver is not the same as
the typical uneducated taxi driver. While a well educated one can add value to
the tourism drive of a country by also acting as a tour guide (the way they do
in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt), an uneducated one (like most Nigerian
ones) wouldn’t even see the connection between his job as a taxi driver and his
country’s tourism aspirations. Nigeria cannot develop anywhere near its
potential without having the majority of its population WELL educated. If only
the government could truly realise this and see the importance of an educated
populace, perhaps it would be willing to put more resources, financial and
other wise, to ensuring the sector emerges from its present comatose state.
Having said that,
while our entire educational system needs to improve, from the primary right
through secondary to the university, the focus of my article will be on the
universities.
There is no doubt
that due to the decades of neglect, the financial resources required to return
our universities to some semblance of sanity will be massive. And while we
certainly do not have a poor government, the financial position of the
government is not particularly buoyant. Yes, corruption in Nigeria is massive,
but even in the absence of large-scale corruption, I am not convinced that
Nigeria can really afford to give its ballooning population a free and
qualitative education right now. Let’s face ne fact - whatever is good and high
quality costs money and education is no exception. Unfortunately, because of
the failure of past governments, any government in Nigeria now has a colossal
amount of things to spend money on and not enough money to spend. Infrastructure
demands are looming! Nigeria needs to rehabilitate and build more roads,
rehabilitate and build more schools and hospitals, power generating stations
and related infrastructure, infrastructure for the Niger Delta, refineries,
dams, sea ports et al. The financial implications are undoubtedly huge.
Let’s also face another fact -
even in the midst of producing 2 million barrels of oil a day, Nigeria is still
a relatively poor country. 2 million barrels sounds like a lot, but with 150
million people!? Trust me, it’s not. We tend to compare Nigeria with Saudi
Arabia, Brunei, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Norway and some other oil producing
countries. But the truth is that these countries produce a lot more oil than we
do, with a fraction of our population. To put it in more perspective let me
give the per capita income of these countries; Saudi Arabia $18,855, Brunei
$37,053, Kuwait $45,920, Bahrain $27,248, UAE $55, 028, Norway $94,387 and
Nigeria, with its 2 million barrels of oil per day - a paltry $1,401!! To put
it in more perspective, South Africa that produces no oil has a per capita
income of $5,685!! And these are countries that as at today have largely sorted
out their infrastructure problems and therefore do not need to spend so much on
roads and electricity generation and the like. So is Nigeria really a RICH
country!? I don’t really think so! Therefore in as much as we would like to
believe that Nigeria should be able to make education free, the way it might be
in so many of these countries, I am not convinced that Nigeria can really
afford it.
Where am I going with
this? I believe that our universities should be structured such that the government
takes care of all capital expenditure (capex), which would be budgeted for,
while the universities take care of all operating expenditure (opex), including
salaries, from their own internally generated revenue. This will likely mean
that university tuition would go up, but with the importance of a quality
education, would it not be worth it to pay more for a higher quality education?
Like I said earlier, rarely is a thing of value and quality cheap. We often
make references to “abroad” where education is free, but I wonder where
exactly. I just browsed on the web and found that the average tuition fee for
British citizens is about £3,200 (about N860,000), while in America, it is
about $9,000 (1,350,000) for American citizens. And while tuition in a few
countries in western and central Europe is free, in some cases fees for
accommodation, living expenses and books still exceed Eur1,000 and in most
cases anyway, the governments of most of these countries are currently
reviewing them. Besides these are also some of the most heavily taxed countries
in the world. I am not saying our tuition should be at these levels, but at
least let the universities themselves make the call as to how much to charge
based on my suggested financial autonomy and their perception of the kind of
quality education they deliver. If a particular university wants to pay its
lecturers N800,000 a month, it will have to ensure that its internal revenue is
capable of handling it. In fact, it is my belief that financial and political
autonomy in the universities, along with disparate salaries based on financial
capacity of the universities to pay (ASUU will not want to hear this), will
actually enhance the university system by providing competition.
This competition will force our
universities to develop a value proposition to attract students and lecturers
alike and will force the universities to better manage their resources.
A university could put forward
its academic excellence in engineering or its excellent sports facilities to
students as its unique selling point. Another could sell its linkages to the
private sector after graduation as its unique selling point in a bid to attract
students. Likewise another could sell its appreciable research grants as a
reason to attract quality lecturers. There should be a reason to seek to attend
one university over the other. For now, the only perceived difference in
quality of our universities is that some are federal, while some are state
owned or perhaps private. Just a few days ago, I read an article in the papers
suggesting that our universities lack proper management. I believe this
totally. Our Professors and vice-chancellors are at best administrators, not
visionaries. Though they are specialists in their field, most lack the all
round management expertise to effectively manage the resources in our
universities! In fact, with the current structure of our universities, where
everything comes from the government, they are not really encouraged to do so.
Indeed, not every Professor can effectively function as a Vice Chancellor!
However, with political and financial autonomy, the governing council of each
university would be hard pressed to elect a vice-chancellor that would deliver
a really well managed and focused university. The universities are not
primarily money-making institutions, but I am of the opinion that there is
plenty of room for cost savings on the one hand and improved revenue generation
on the other, if the VC’s think a little bit more creatively.
Now, let it not
appear as though I live in the clouds and have lost sense of all reality. No
doubt, the generality of Nigerians are poor. For many, to afford the existing
“cheap” tuition is a challenge, how much more to afford tuition fees of 2 to 5
times that. I share that sentiment. However, I believe the university system is
better served by support to the students themselves rather than to the
university. Rather than make tuition unsustainably cheap, I would rather a
situation where tuition is allowed to find its level, while the government, churches,
NGO’s and wealthy individuals support poor students who are unable to afford
university education via bursaries, grants and scholarships. A quick check
online indicates that tuition at Bowen University, a private university in
Nigeria, is about N500,000.00, at Covenant University, it is ranges from N370,000.00
to N460,000.00, while at Redeemers University, it is about N400,000.00 for old
students and about N600,000.00 for new students. These are universities built
from scratch. Therefore, if the structure earlier proposed was at play, where
government universities cater for only their operating expenditure themselves,
and considering that the physical structures are in most cases already in
place, perhaps the tuition at our government universities might settle at
anywhere between N100,000 and N150,000 for a session.
Do the students and
parents themselves have any role to play in all of this? Yes, they do. I
believe students and parents alike have lost all sense of how important a good
education is and the reason why they go to university. On the one hand, society
is to blame. We have all grown up to believe that if a child does not have a
university (or higher education) that such a child has no future. So much so,
that we do everything we can to ensure our children get into university and
obtain a degree, without giving much thought as to the quality of that degree.
Yet, I know a number of people in Nigeria today, who are active in businesses
totally unrelated to the courses they studied in university. If we really value
a good education, shouldn’t we be willing to pay for it, even if it means giving
up a few things? The Nigerian people are a very wasteful one. Even in the midst
of poverty, we always seem to be able to find money to buy one union cloth (aso
egbe or aso ebi) or the other, or to bury a parent that died years ago, or to
organise a party or wedding ceremony in a bid to outdo the party a friend threw
a few months back. These are all nice things, especially if the financial
capacity is available, but largely irrelevant when there are more important
things to invest in, such as a quality education for our children. Even our
students have lost all sense of why they are in university. Perhaps they have
lost hope in the usefulness of the degree in the outside world. In most cases,
our graduates are not able to gain employment once they leave the university
with their degrees. But the truth is that the quality of our education is so
poor that our graduates are not really equipped and ready to fit into the
corporate world and the outside world. Their minds have not been developed.
They can barely use the computer effectively, they can barely speak good
English and are barely any better intellectually than when they entered. As the
old saying goes “one should go through university and allow university to go
through him”. Unfortunately most graduates go through university, but
university does not go through them. Many of our girls have turned to
prostitutes on campus in order obtain money to afford vain things; expensive
phones, clothes, shoes and bags, while many of the boys are cult members or
strive to drive cars on campus and wear clothes that even their working
brothers are not wearing. All misplaced priorities!! I recall that back in the
day, many of our parents had to carry firewood, fetch water or hawk in the
morning before they went to school and after they returned. That was a time
when we valued our education. Our parents were prepared to give an arm and a
leg to get an education then. Funny enough, when Nigerians go abroad to study,
they are usually willing to work in Burger King, Mc Donald’s, ASDA Tesco and
the like to earn money to support their school fees in search of a valuable
education. However, our local students are not willing to sacrifice a bit more
for their education. I am convinced that if most relatively poor students were
given the option of working at the university car wash to earn an income to
support their education, 90% would refuse, probably too embarrassed to do “such
a job”. I guess this is because they get the impression that the available
education offers little value and they therefore see no need to sacrifice for
it. However, if the quality of our education improves significantly, perhaps our
students will be willing to do more to support their own tuition fees.
There is so much more
that can be said about our higher educational framework. Although I have said a
lot, I do acknowledge that my views are not meant to suggest that there is only
one way forward for the development of our university system or that I have all
the answers. I have however attempted to be as objective and dispassionate
about the issue as possible, from all points of view. Therefore I will give a rundown
of what would be my main policy thrusts, were I saddled with the responsibility
of re-structuring our university system
1. The universities
should be given political and financial autonomy. Political autonomy is defined
here as “giving the universities the power to elect its own vice chancellor and
other principal officers”, while financial autonomy is defined to mean “ each
university should be given the freedom to determine the salaries of its
lecturers and other staff, based on their academic quality and what they bring
to the table, subject to a minimum, as well as charge whatever tuition fees it
deems appropriate and in general be responsible for financing its own operating
expenditure”.
2. Government should
continue to be responsible for capital expenditure in the universities as well
as all research grants, as well as give operational grants from time to time to
support the universities.
3. Government should
put in place mechanisms whereby poor students are supported with scholarships,
grants, bursaries and loans.
4. The universities
themselves need to re-orientate their thinking. The current modus operandi of
our university system, where everything falls from the government table, does
not appear sustainable.
5. NUC should live up
to its responsibility and effectively regulate the amount of student intakes
based on available facilities as well as regulate the university system
generally in order to significantly improve on the quality.
6. University
education should be de-emphasised in favour of equally high quality technical
and vocational education that empowers students to start their own business and
do their own thing.
Hopefully, one day
very soon, the government, ASUU and other stakeholders, will sit down together
and discuss objectively and chart a sustainable future for our education
system. My fear though is the lack of trust. ASUU, based on our experiences of
the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, will likely not listen to any claims that the
government cannot afford to give Nigerian’s an equivalent 60’s education in
2010. Government is also likely to be too big headed to agree that it has been
largely incompetent in the managing of the human capital of this country and admit
that it has to and can still afford to do much more than it is currently doing.
All parties must be able to find some middle ground. However, if we cannot get
this restructuring done, then it will be doom for this country over the next
decade and beyond, as educational standards fall further and Nigeria does not
possess the manpower required to effectively compete in an increasingly global and
technologically driven economy.
