THE STATE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Investment in university education is inadequate. It is a mistake

In 2020, the year of Covid-19 pandemic when almost everything was disrupted, the National Universities Commission (NUC) undertook a very important assignment. In ‘The State of University Education in Nigeria, 2020,’ fourth in the series, the NUC painstakingly chronicled the academic environment in Nigeria, and in the process highlighted the successes and challenges of university education in our country. It is a report that will serve the administration of President Bola Tinubu and other critical stakeholders if we must address the challenge of tertiary education in Nigeria.

As the immediate past Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu wrote in the foreword to the publication, “Keeping the doors of learning open was a challenge for the Nigerian University system in 2020” while the report “has exposed the strengths and weaknesses of the Nigerian University System with new data, recommended solutions for government to implement and allowed us to gain an exclusive look at the educational landscape post-Covid-19.”

Particularly striking was the demographics of the university system in the year under consideration. From just over 2000 students in 1962, some 2.1 million students enrolled for full undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Nigerian universities in 2019. The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) topped the list with 479,966 undergraduate and 101,983 post-graduate students. Despite the then raging war against the Boko Haram insurgency, particularly in Borno State, the University of Maiduguri held second position with 59,226 students while Ahmadu Bello University was ranked third with 50,673 students. The University of Benin, University of Ilorin, Bayero University Kano, University of Nigeria, University of Port Harcourt, University of Lagos and the University of Jos, all federal universities, followed suit. Overall, 68 per cent of students in the country enrolled in federal universities while the states’ universities had 26 per cent of enrolment. Despite their number, all the private universities in the country enrolled only five per cent of the students’ population.

Another noteworthy information from the publication is the percentage of total enrolment by geopolitical zones. The Northcentral had most enrolment with 40 per cent, followed by Southwest with 17 per cent; South South, 15 per cent; Northwest, 11 per cent; Southeast, 10 per cent, and the Northeast, 10 per cent. It is difficult to explain but in all the public universities, the teaching staff were outstripped by non-teaching staff with the University of Calabar having the most staff of 11,294, 7,681 of them were non-academic. The University also had 597 professors, the highest in the country. Curiously, however, the top 10 universities with the highest percentage of First Class graduates in 2020 were private universities, a trend that has continued till this day.

 However, while the private universities were unaffected by the paralysing and prolonged strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the public universities for most of the year, they also switched easily to technology-mediated tools to impart lectures during the lockdown. Their emphasis on the use of multi-media to complement traditional teaching enabled students to undertake practical and tutorials in interactive sessions. Many of the public institutions dependent mostly on the lecture mode of instructions were caught unprepared.

Overall, be it public or private, the State of University Education speaks to the concerns of critical stakeholders regarding tertiary education in the country. Despite its important role in the society, it is evident education is inadequately funded in Nigeria. There is dearth of qualified academic staff to drive the universities. Most of the institutions of higher learning are not only suffering from inadequate infrastructure, ill-equipped laboratories, overcrowded classrooms, but they are ill-staffed. Indeed, the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities, had long identified these challenges.

 With a robust environment for learning, quality teachers and international competitiveness, the Nigerian university system, once attracted the best from Africa and beyond, to study. The products could match the best anywhere. In the last few decades, however, the system has suffered benign neglect, and many are increasingly questioning the ability to maintain comparable standards in the knowledge world.

The situation has deteriorated further since the publication with the continued registration of new universities by both government and private individuals without the backing of adequate resources. Only recently, a bill to establish 47 new universities went through second reading in the House of Representatives. If passed, it will push up the number of public and private universities to 309. With the proliferation of these institutions, teachers who can’t hold their own as senior lecturers in respectable universities are being hired as professors and even vice chancellors in some of these new universities. The implications are clear: limited skilled human resources have contributed to the declining quality that has continued to elicit concern from stakeholders.

The situation is exacerbated by brain drain. Many senior academic staff, due to poor remuneration, continue to take their services to countries where they are more appreciated. The depletion of scholars inside faculties is also aided by inability to attract visiting scholars from other academic environments.

The birth of TETFUND opened a window of opportunities as it initiated the funding of many postgraduate students to some prestigious universities in Europe and North America. Even though this window itself was abused by many recipients who reportedly collected scholarship funds but avoided travelling abroad for training, TETFUND has started something remarkable by promoting national research culture which will flow into encouraging academic staff to stay in Nigeria instead of migrating offshore. And though the present administration should be commended for approving some N683 billions for the public universities, the decay in the system is deep, and it may not yield much. 

Thus, while we support the clamour for increased funding, we nonetheless think that given the dwindling resources of government, the tertiary institutions need to think out of the box and find more creative solutions to the problem. Elsewhere, universities have explored several ways of raising money to fund their operations. The common avenues include donations, endowments, scholarships and bursaries, professional chairs, gifts, grants, and consultancy services, and more. This newspaper has long argued for such a move. The holes in the system are many. We need all the package to dispel the current crisis.