Certificatemania, universitymania & quantity illusion 3

We have moved from certificatemania (desperate craze for certificates), which led to universitymania (making universities three-for-a-penny) and this led to the current plan by the government to establish 80 universities and allied institutions. That is in a distressed economy that already has 43 federal universities, 47 state universities, 75 private universities, about 100 fake universities and thousands of online universities. As in previous occasions, the NASS argued that the deluge is necessary given the population of the country, the large number of students seeking admission and ASUU’s complaints about the pressure on existing universities.  At least, for the first time, they have listened to ASUU! It is however obvious that the quests for more universities is not an altruistic agenda to develop our educational system. It is politically motivated. Most politicians have failed their constituents; they lost so much time pursuing stomach infrastructure through blackmail-oriented political crises and so, as the day of reckoning is at hand, they are desperately looking for something to show-off within their constituencies. And this is happening when ASUU and ASUP are on strike as a result of poor funding and failed government promises

On top of all these, the NASS has just resolved to declare an emergency in the educational sector of Nigeria. Well… I just de laff! I laugh because all aspects of the Nigerian socio-political environment (health, infrastructure, governance, everything) are on all fours and thus are all emergency cases. I had raised this matter 8 months ago (Nigeria, an emergency case, BusinesDay, 25/4/18). Secondly, this emergency declaration is coming from legislooters who have repeatedly given serious haircuts to the educational budget! In any case, our people say that the person who attempted to murder his neighbour with a gun should not be responsible for extracting the bullet lodged in his victim’s chest! In effect, to what extent should we trust the NASS, which, in conjunction with the executive, has wrought the extant level of harm on education, to restore the sector to health? Can we trust those who caused the emergency cure the emergency?

By establishing more universities when those in existence are derelict shows that the government is more interested in quantity than quality. As our people would say, if the first child cannot crawl, how do we expect the second child to run? How can we drink over-tea when we have not tasted tea (first things first)? How can we equate the height of a child with his level of maturity (there is a gulf of difference between growth and development!). Building more universities when those in existence are just existing  shows that the government is suffering from eso-otu (being distracted by several things) or ochi-ili syndrom(pursuing ten things at the same time; pursuing three rats simultaneously, with the likelihood that all will escape!)

Establishing more universities just for the sake of establishing them will rather complicate the challenges of our educational system. The chief ASUUist, Professor Ogunyemi recently informed all of us that some universities in Egypt and Malaysia have over 500,000 students.  It is better to stock the existing universities with requisite material human resources rather than just dotting the entire landscape with UNIVERSities which are mostly local. Rather than setting up more universities that will devalue the quality of higher education, the FG should explore ways of improving the quality and encourage retention of high standards of scholarship in teaching and research

I conclude with the views of two other Nigerians on this vexatious matter:

‘We boast that 1 in every 5 African is a Nigerian. The importance of this huge number is if every Nigerian becomes a positive contributor to human development. We can only achieve this with an educational system that enables an individual to positively use his or her talent for the good of the society. Currently, our education system works to bring the worst out of the Nigerian. We have destroyed our education system from the family foundation. We have broken the foundation of our education and built it on structures of fraudulence and infrastructures of deception. Where does the president begin to reform such a system? He can only by his example lead and teach Nigerians to see the need for quality education. He must declare a state of our education, a national emergency’ Professor O Tomori, Vice Chancellor, Redeemers University, Setting an Agenda for President Jonathan Guardian, 6/5/10,p22

‘There are too many questions groping for answers especially, the tertiary level. Our public universities are still operating along their original Soviet model lines: total public funding, poor remuneration, little or no research funding, uniform pay for disparate academic levels of commitment and academic performance; virtually free tuition, lack of facilities, staff trade union tyranny etc. In the present situation, we are faced with producing graduates that can neither work in private companies nor employ themselves as small business people. Precisely how many graduates does this system demand in a year; which are the critical disciplines; what % of our university needs should be filled by federal, state and private institutions? What are the desirable standards? Which nations are we benchmarking [India, China, Malaysia? What are the overall strategic goals of Nigerian higher education in the 1^st half of the 21^stcentury? And how are we going to pay for the education we need and gainfully engage the products of these universities? Chidi Amuta; Microwave Universities, Thisday, 22/11/10,back-Page

Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye.                        

08033026625;muoigbo@yahoo.com;      muo.ik@oouagoiwoye.com