UJI ABDULLAHI ILIYASU brings special reports on major events that had taken place in the education sector, especially in the Universal Basic Commission (UBEC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Joint admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in 2019.
Universal Basic Education Commission
The rotting Al-majiri schools
In January 2019, it was reported that the Al-majiri model schools built by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 to reduce the number of out-of-school children were left rotting away.
The project resulted in the construction and equipping 157 model schools across the country. But eight years on, across the northern states, a number of these schools were either in ruins or had been abandoned.
In Katsina state, one of such schools reported as completed was yet to admit its first set of pupils. Instead, it had been abandoned, and facilities there left to rot away.
Located along Katsina road, Dutsin-ma in Katsina state, Al-majiri Model School, Dutsin-ma, was overgrown with weed even as its buildings and facilities were collapsing.
Reports said if it were functional, it could have taken about 300 school-aged children off the streets.
The Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2015 by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the federal government indicates that the population of out-of-school children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5 million to 13.7 million.
The result of that survey has not been officially released. But the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education (UBEC), Dr Hammid Bobboyi, quoted its findings on October 4 at a briefing in Abuja ahead of the Northern Nigerian Traditional Rulers’ Conference on Out-of-School Children.
UBEC claims in its record that the school in Dutsin-Ma, like others, was long completed and handed over to Katsina state government for use.
Al-majiri children
Personnel audit of basic schools
In 2018, UBEC inaugurated a team of experts to take personnel audit of basic schools in both public and private sectors.
In December 2019, UBEC officially presented and launched the audit report in Abuja. The launch was attended by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, chairmen of education committees in the National Assembly and other stakeholders.
Personnel audit report
According to the report launched by UBEC in 2019, North-East has the lowest access to basic education among the six geopolitical zones in the country, while the South-East has the highest access.
Among the 36 states of the federation, Zamfara, Yobe, Sokoto Rivers, Kogi and Borno have the lowest access to basic education, the report reveals.
North-West highest on gender equality
Furthermore, on the area of gender enrolment on Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE), the North-West has the highest enrolment of both boys and girls while the South-South and South-West zones have higher female enrolment than male. However, the North-East tops the zones with the highest male enrolment.
Teachers’ qualification
Among the states, Ekiti state tops the five states with the highest qualified teachers, followed by Benue, Oyo, Edo and Osun states.
Similarly, on zonal basis, the chances that a child enrol in public or private early education was highest in the South-East zone with a net intake rate of 48.6 and lowest in the North-East zone with a net intake rate of 13.1.
The report says the opportunities to enrol in early education centres whether public or private, are generally higher in southern zones than in the northern zones.
School drop-outs
On the number of drop-outs in public schools, the report reveals that more girls drop out of public schools than boys, but more boys drop out of private schools than girls.
The Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, during the launch and presentation of the personnel audit report, said the launching of the nationwide personnel audit (2018) report was an honour and humility for him and UBEC because the audit was a great strategic assignment which accomplishment was made possible by God and stakeholders who had worked tirelessly towards its success.
Bobboyi said for the report to come to fruition, the team had traversed the six geographical zones to understudy their basic schools and appreciate their challenges and prospects.
“We want all children in Nigeria to go to school and receive basic education. So, we thank all stakeholders who made it possible to write this compressive audit report which will serve as data base for development planning and research.
“This is the first time personnel audit of basic schools covered both public and private education sector.
“Despite initial suspicion by private sector, private schools later embraced the programme,” he said.
Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said, “I didn’t know that the National Personnel Audit of basic schools Dr Bobboyi asked to undertake was going to be as comprehensive as what he has presented today.
“Before now, we used to run to UNICEF for information on our schools but today they will come to our table for similar information,” Adamu said.
The minister said the Federal Ministry of Education would study the report and come out with comprehensive policies on basic education in the country.
The 2018 National Personnel Audit (NPA) was implemented by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Education and its relevant parastatals, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Population Commission (NPC), International Development Partners (IDPs), National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and other relevant stakeholders in the states.
Reforms in JAMB recognised
In 2019, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is’haq Oloyede, received a number of award from various organisations and individuals because of the sanity he has restored in the Board due to his zero tolerance to corrupt practices in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and admission processes in public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education across the nation.
Some of these reforms included the Computer Based Test (CBT), the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) and the compulsory national identity registration for UTME candidates.
National Productivity Award
The year under review witnessed the conferment of the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award by President Muhammadu Buhari on the registrar for his excellent and selfless quality service to the nation.
The registrar has bagged the national productivity award in recognition of his patriotic service to the nation.
The latest award the registrar had been honoured with last year was the LEADERSHIP Person of the Year award.
LEADERSHIP Person of the Year 2019
Professor Is’haq Oloyede was pleasantly surprised while on a routine visit to the Federal Ministry of Education. It was here that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu drew his attention to the recognition accorded him by LEADERSHIP Newspapers, which had named him and Mr Femi Otedola as the joint winners of 2019 LEADERSHIP Newspaper Persons of the year.
The bewildered Oloyede expressed his deep appreciation to LEADERSHIP Newspapers for the recognition it had accorded his modest efforts in his patriotic service to the nation.
Manipulation of varsity portals
JAMB, in a bid to wipe out sharp practices in the admission processes had uncovered manipulation of admission in portals of some universities. Before now the board had received complaints from the general public that three public universities had devised a method of “offering admission” to candidates outside the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) on their own designated portals. The device is a ploy to lure innocent and more qualified candidates from their preferred programmes.
The “offering” of admission to candidates by the institutions outside the CAPS is a deliberate act perfected with the intent to lure unsuspecting candidates to accept other courses aside from their courses of choice.
According to JAMB, the CAPS system was designed, among other things, to prevent institutions from unilaterally changing or proposing a candidate for admission into other programmes other than their chosen ones; disallow an institution to skip a higher ranking candidate to pick a less ranking candidate;
allow an institution to recommend a substitute programme for the consent or rejection by a relatively low-ranking candidate who is not likely to secure a place in their initial programmes; and allow low-ranking candidates on each programme to, on their own, opt-out of consideration from the initial programme and be considered for a programme where they rank high enough to be considered.
“In order to circumvent the rights of these candidates which the JAMB CAPS is protecting and eliminate from the list in each particular programme the highest-ranking candidates, the institutions are using their own portals to unlawfully persuade and pressurise the innocent candidates to either accept another course and then make a change of course on the JAMB portal to the new course they have been ‘supposedly offered’ on their own portal or to psychologically bully the candidates to accept the new course when it is subsequently proposed for their consent on the JAMB CAPS.
“JAMB wishes to state that these tricks which are meant to usurp the rights of the candidates are improper and should be disregarded by the candidates.
“All institutions employing such tricks are putting into jeopardy the future of the illegitimately favoured less qualified candidates as the board will not condone or regularise such irregular admission.
“Any candidate who accepts any offer of admission made outside CAPS (i.e. not on JAMB’s candidates’ profile) does so at his/her own risk. There shall be no regularisation of any irregular or condoning of illegal admission.”
JAMB in 2019, had given appropriate caution to universities to promptly withdraw and desist from such illegitimate action, warning that any such act would henceforth be visited with appropriate sanctions.
“The board shall protect the rights of all candidates to be given their due irrespective of their social status.”
NASU honours Oloyede
In 2019, the Non-Academic Staff Union of educational and associated institutions (NASU), honoured the Registrar with a fellowship award.
The Secretary-General of NASU, Prince Peters Adeyemi, while conferring the award on Oloyede at the quadrennial delegate’s conference, held in Abuja, commended Oloyede’s purposeful leadership in JAMB, which has “translated into harmonious and cordial working relationship among the NASU Branch of JAMB in the FCT NASU Secretariat.”
The NASU Secretary-General told the registrar that he was honoured for his honesty.
“NASU honoured you for your transparency, humility and demonstrated commitments towards the emancipation of the oppressed and the less privileged within the society as well as for your distinguished personality and positive transformation of JAMB.
“Professor Oloyede has been a long-standing friend of NASU right from the time he held sway at the University of Ilorin. We are happy that this relationship is growing from strength to strength. We are honouring him as one of our own not only because he has performed excellently but also for identifying with us in all our programmes and aspirations. In addition, he has changed the face of JAMB and the evidence is there for all to see.
“One other notable quality of Oloyede is that he is a respecter of due process and abhors anything that amounts to illegality.”
Tertiary Education Trust Fund
Three committees launched
The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Elias Suleiman Bogoro, within few months of resumption at his duty post after an interval, inaugurated three committees, which are critical to raising the standard of scholarship and research in Nigeria’s higher institutions of learning towards the overall socio-economic development of the nation.
The three committees had been mandated to solve crucial issues in the Nigerian higher institutions of learning. These issues border on research and development, book publishing and impact assessment of TETFund interventions in the last 20 years in the nation’s tertiary beneficiary institutions.
Research and Development
The first was the inauguration of ad-hoc committee on Research and Development (R&D) in March.
During the inauguration of the committee, Bogoro reassured that researchers in Nigerian tertiary institutions would have no cause to remain poor.
He says innovative research and its consequent commercialisation is the driver that moves and nurtures the engine of modern economic growth, thus it is an important driver of poverty alleviation.
“The key measurement parameters for Nigerian Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the anchor for Nigeria’s economic transformation blueprint is dependent on Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). The advancement in SET is dependent on Research and Development (R&D).
“There is ample evidence to show that R&D propelled by higher education, more than anything else, has contributed to the rise and expansion of the world knowledge economy.” Bogoro said.
He further said that the power of commercialisation of R&D results has been recognised by both developed and developing economies and that the nature and demands of modern economy is the fundament stimulus for the university-industry relationships, and stressed that investment in research and development as well as human capital development is key to economic advancement of any nation.
He stated that in developed countries, industries look up to universities as potential innovators in the development and commercialisation of products, which results in funding the cash-starved universities and university researchers having access to most modern technology and management systems in industries. He added that higher education institutions are globally positioned to be the bridge between the productive society and knowledge growth.
Research remarkably low
According to TETFund boss,“In spite of the fact that the role of R&D in national development, including leveraging the quality of research and academic programmes is well known, the level of research and development infrastructure and productivity in Nigeria remains unacceptably low (0.02%).”
Research regulation
Bogoro averred that in spite of the fact that research and development is central to a country’s development, in Nigeria, there is absence of a national platform for the regulation and strengthening of research and development.
“It is in this vein that TETFund, propelled by my vision, continues to advocate the establishment by law, of a national R&D Foundation that will ensure a coordinated national framework for the sustenance and implementation of R&D.
“Such a foundation, when established, shall promote an effective interface between universities, government and private sector, especially the industrial subsector of the economy.
“Since 2004, when I was appointed the Executive Secretary of TETFund, I was and still am committed to lead TETFund in this vision by sensitising the whole country towards the need to strengthen R&D in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
“The passion is evidenced by the numerous papers I have presented across the country.”
Bogoro therefore, said for long, TETFund had been paying attention to physical infrastructure but the time for innovative researches to make the physical structures meaningful had come.
The committee has Professor Placid Njoku, an erudite scholar and one of Africa’s most prominent intellectuals and academics and current president of Nigerian Institute of Animal Science as Chairman; Ibrahim Katampe, a Professor of Chemistry and director for Innovative and Technology Incubation in the Center for Excellence in Emerging Technologies (CEET), Central State University, USA, as Vice Chairman. While Mr Temitope Toogun, head of human capital commission of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) serves as member.
All three have promised to take TETFund R&D assignment with all seriousness for the good of Nigeria.
Committee on Book Development
In August 2019, Bogoro inaugurated technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ensure the publishing of quality indigenous academic textbooks in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
The event which took place in Abuja, drew a large number of renowned academics and erudite scholars from across selected Nigerian universities.
In his opening speech, Bogoro says Nigeria is blessed with many professors with specialisation in different fields which could be put to better use to drive the national economy.
He therefore, called on the academics that were appointed to the technical group to take their appointment seriously as their appointments, he said, were based purely on merit, and would last for only two years but subject to renewal upon satisfactory performance.
Renowned academics, Professor Charles Awo and Professor Umar Pate are to serve as chairman and vice chairman of TAG respectively.
Bogoro said Nigeria had realised that for a country to develop in all aspects of its life, it needs to subscribe to a knowledge-driven economy, and gave the examples of Brazil and Malaysia, which were once at the same level of development with Nigeria, but have now gone far because of their early recognition of the important role knowledge plays in a nation’s development.
The TETFund boss said it was embarrassing to see sub-standard books published by academics in the country.
“We are all aware that there is critical paucity of indigenously produced tertiary level textbooks and related academic publications in the nation’s tertiary education institutions. It is equally worrisome that the quality of most academic publications in our country leaves much to be desired.
“To combat this trend head-on, the Book Development Fund intervention was deliberated created by the Fund with the aim of restoring the culture of research and high quality academic publishing within the higher education subsector.
“It is expected that nurturing the culture of quality authorship and the production of indigenous books will not only ensure the availability of relevant books in diverse subject areas that take cognisance of our local environment and sensitivities, it would also safeguard national pride.
“While it is true that foreign books are helpful, indigenous book industry is needed to provide opportunities for the nation’s writers , thinkers and artists.
“The gross insufficiency of standard tertiary level literature in our libraries and bookshops further underscore the urgent need to come up with targeted strategies to encourage production of textbooks for our tertiary institutions.”
He assured the technical group that to ensure adequate production of indigenous academic textbooks, and in line with the mandate of the Fund, the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Fund had approved N2bn for Book Development Fund, even as additional seed of N2.9bn had been added to the initial grant to make it N4.9bn, out of which N2.6bn had been utilised for the intended purpose.
He stressed that the book development fund will intervene in three areas namely, development and publication of academic books and the conversion of theses into books; support for professional association journals, and the establishment and sustainability of Academic Publishing Centres (APC).
He said APC would be constructed in at least one university in the six geopolitical regions and the FCT, thus University of Calabar will represent the South-south, FUT Minna, for North-Central, UniMaid for North-East, UDUS for North-West, UniZik for South-East and UniLag for South-West, while UniAbuja will serve the FCT.
During each of these occasions, Bogoro spoke and looked as if he had found the formula for the much needed industrial revolution for the country. His concern for Nigeria’s slow pace of social economic development was written all over his face. His speeches poured forth from his heart as if Nigeria’s survival depends on how effectively he runs the Fund.
The TETFund boss said it was embarrassing to see sub-standard books published by academics in the country, so he was determined to stop the menace.
Committee on Impact Assessment (TACIA)
Also in 2019, Professor Bogoro inaugurated the Technical Advisory Committee on Impact Assessment (TACIA) of TETFund in Abuja, the third in the series of committees inaugurated to uplift the activities in the system.
The committee which consists of renowned academics selected from various tertiary institutions and technocrats in the country was charged with the mandate to assess the impact of the Fund based on its interventions and the progress made by the beneficiary institutions in 20 years (1999-2019).
To ensure the committee carries out its assignment without distractions, it was given a terms of reference which include carrying out impact assessment of TETFund interventions from 1999 to 2019; determination of the level of implementation, mandates and effectiveness of the fund; to determine challenges, achievements and weaknesses recorded and observed in the course of the implementation of the existing projects, programmes and intervention lines of the Fund; to improve future direction of the fund within the TETFund statutory mandate as encapsulated in its establishment Act.
Other terms include collating and analysing selected speeches of the past and present Executive Secretaries of TETFund; annual/periodic publications, reports and communications arising from annual events such as TETFund/FIRS interactive forum; strategic plan documents; annual interventions and internal working budgets, and lastly to examine any other matter which in the opinion of the committee, is relevant to the impact assessment of TETFund interventions and to submit the report on or before the end of 2019.
National Universities Commission
ICT policy draft for Nigerian varsities
In the year under review, the National Universities Commission (NUC) held discussions with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) directors from federal universities on the drafted policy on ICT in their institutions.
The Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary (Administration), Kidado Kumo, said the purpose for calling the meeting was for all ICT directors in federal universities to make input in the final document before its submission to the NUC board.
He said the discussion was expected to be focused on the installations and the standards that wouldl guide the ICT in Nigerian universities thereby assuring the ICT industry’s best practices.
He added that every sector of the national economy is ICT-driven and the advancement of ICT application in the education system is far reaching.
Rasheed said the goal was to ensure sufficient deployment and good use of ICT in teaching, learning and research in universities which must be preceded by a robust ICT policy documentation as well as a practical guideline.
“The new discipline of computing now has about five degree programmes in Nigerian universities comprising of the conventional BSc (Computer Science), BSc (Software Engineering), BSc (Cyber Security), BSc (Information Technology) and BSc (Information Systems),” he said.
Rasheed said seven universities had already keyed into the programmes beyond the computer science known with institutions in Nigeria.
He encouraged directors of ICT in universities to collaborate to share knowledge and resources and establish a functional committee of directors of ICT in universities, assuring them that the NUC would continue to produce policies in consultation with the university system.
In his speech, the director of research, innovation and information technology, Lawal Mohammed Faruk, said although he had received various comments from various universities ICT directors, all opinions would be well discussed in the debate.
Nigerian varsities over localised, indigenised
Towards the end of 2019, Professor Rasheed said that Nigerian universities were over localised and indigenised and that had deprived the ivory towers of their essence as universal communities. To correct that, he said, universities should have at least 20 per cent foreign lecturers and students.
Professor Rasheed disclosed this during an end of year interactive session with journalists in the Commission.
Catchment areas
On catchment areas, he said it was untrue that the federal government had abrogated the catchment areas as part of criteria for admission into Nigerian universities.
“The truth is that government is concerned that in this era of internalisation of university education, the demographics of Nigerian universities reveals a preponderance of over localisation and over indigenisation, with only a handful of universities – including federal universities – having a semblance of national universities in terms of national spread of their staff and students.”
The NUC boss wondered how Nigerian universities could rank high in the face of over indigenisation of staff and students.
NUC not derailing from vision
The NUC boss says the commission does not derail from its focus to its mandate and vision which is helping the universities build strong programmes and encouraging them to be innovative as well as ensuring that quality is assured in the universities.
“In the discharge of our mandate, we welcome constructive criticisms and fair comments. However, whenever we see any attempt to dishonour, discredit and tarnish the hard-earned name and image of the Commission, we would never hesitate to set the records straight for the discerning public.
Accreditation teams not from NUC
The NUC boss responded to three topical issues that had been trending both in the traditional and social media in December of the year under review, with the following headlines, ‘As NUC’s accreditation (sic) alleged wrongdoings come under lawmakers’ searchlight’, published by a national daily on December 19, 2019; and Inside Nigeria’s ivory tower where fake professors nurture tomorrow’s leaders’.
The Executive Secretary said in the whole of NUC, he was the only professor, saying that NUC does not go for accreditation. It only selects professors from universities based on their disciplines, and among the panel, only one man who serves as secretary of the team would come from NUC.
He said if universities are not willing to strengthen quality assurance it would be difficult for someone else to do it for them. He said those who wrote against NUC without contacting the commission on accreditation and fake professors in Nigerian universities, made baseless allegations against officials of the commission.
“As education correspondents, most of you are conversant with the procedure of accreditation. To conduct accreditation on any programme a panel consisting of at least three professors in the relevant subject area and NUC representative is set up.
“The three professors are to evaluate the programme based on set parameters, give their scores and comments and recommend a status for the programme to the Commission. The only one NUC representative on the panel does not evaluate or scores. He only monitors”
Professor Rasheed said the Commission was constrained to keep reminding stakeholders that the process of accreditation is a “peer review process where professors drawn from other universities are used as panellists. He said the only NUC representative on the panel has no statutory powers to influence any accreditation.
Fake professors
On fake professors, Rasheed said in the process of validating the process, the Senates of some universities had uncovered that quite a number of professors were either fake or mere readers, who are yet to mature, and warned that apart from universities no educational or research institution can award professorship, therefore, we should not “donate professorship to anybody no matter how brilliant such person is if he is not in the field.”
IPPIS, ASUU and FGN
One of the most talked about issue on the campuses of Nigerian public universities towards the end of 2019, was the battle between Federal Government and ASUU on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
FG’s directive on IPPIS
In 2019, Federal Government, through the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), insisted that the Academic staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members be enrolled on the IPPIS platform as all federal government workers.
But the lecturers argue that the scheme would erode the university autonomy they had fought hard to achieve and reject the idea. Since then the battle between government and ASUU had raged on.
Probity, accountability, transparency in governance
In 2019 the federal government directed that all federal universities in Nigeria enroll on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) to promote probity, transparency and accountability in government expenditure, and to achieve the desired objectives of governance in centralising payroll system.
The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris, stated this at the meeting of vice chancellors, registrars and bursars of federal universities with his office at the National Universities Commission Auditorium, Abuja. He said that the centralised payroll would be prepared by individual universities but co-ordinated by IPPIS while the total management of the human resources rests squarely with the universities.
AGF said the IPPIS scheme was one of the federal government’s reform initiative which was designed to achieve among others, a centralised payroll system of the federal government to facilitate easy storage, updating and retrieval of personnel record for administrative and pension processing to aid manpower planning and budgeting as well as to comply with the global best practices.
He stated that prior to 2015, the total number of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on IPPIS was 288 with total staff strength of 235,858, adding that as at 2019, the total MDAs on IPPIS platform was 561 with a total staff count of over 755,422.
The AGF further stated that the cumulative savings achieved on IPPIS platform between 2017 and 2018 was N273, 809,842,071.99, which he said, would have been lost but now available for government spending.
University peculiarities
The chief accounting officer of the federation also assured ASUU that if they comply with the presidential directive on IPPIS enrolment, the platform would accommodate all peculiarities such as sabbatical, visitation, honorarium and earned allowances, etc, of lecturers.
He stated that the universities should be the best ground for entrenching reforms towards transparency and good governance, urging them to embrace the scheme as government would not change its position on pay payroll system. The AGF further explained that the Nigerian Police and Para-military agencies were already being paid on IPPIS platform while the enrolment of the Nigerian military – Army, Navy and Airforce, have just been concluded and a trial payroll was ongoing. In the same vein the enrolment of Federal Polytechnics was scheduled for early July, 2019.
The Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed described the IPPIS scheme as one of the best thing that has happened to public finance management. That IPPIS was the best way to overcome some of the challenges affecting the universities, he argued.
Also speaking, the Director, IPPIS, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), Mr Olusegun Olufehinti, noted that every university would be involved in the enrollment process, and assured the university administrators of continuous engagement throughout the process.
Over N230bn saved in three years
In October 2019, the AGF said that the implementation of IPPIS had saved the country over N230bn in three years.
