…There‘re early-warning signals to detect quality compromise – FG
…Increase in numbers doesn’t translate to quality – Expert
…Tertiary education now commercialised – NANS
…Adequate funding, not numbers desirable – Prof Amao
The federal government recently granted approval for the creation of 20 new private universities. This is in addition to many federal and state universities established in recent times. BENJAMIN SAMSON in this report takes a look at the proliferation of universities in the country amid falling standards.
The National Universities Commission (NUC) recently presented provisional licences to 20 newly approved private universities in the country. The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, at the presentation of the licences to the universities at the NUC’s headquarters in Abuja, said the approval brought the number of private universities in the country to 99 and a total of 197 universities.
The universities are James Hope University, Lagos; Mar yam Abacha American University of Nigeria, Kano; Capital City University, Kano; Ahman Pategi University, Pategi, Kwara state, and University of Offa, Kwara state.
Others are Topfaith University, Mkpatak, Akwa Ibom state; Thomas Adewumi University, Oko-Irese, Kwara state; Maranathan University, Mgbidi, Imo state; Ave Maria University, Piyanko, Nasarawa state, and Al-Istiqama University, Sumaila, Kano state.
Also granted provisional approval are Mudiame University, Irrua, Edo state; Havilla University, Nde-Ikom, Cross River state; Claretian University of Nigeria, Nekede, Imo state; NOK University, Kachia, Kaduna state, and Karl-Kumm University, Vom, Plateau state. Mewar University, Masaka, Nasarawa state; Edusoko University, Bida, Niger state, Philomath University, Kuje, Abuja; Khadija University, Majia, Jigawa state, and ANAN University, Kwall, Plateau state.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC), presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, had in February approved the establishment of the 20 private universities.
Adamu, who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, said the provisional approval given to the universities to operate was intended to create room for effective mentoring and qualitative growth within the first three years of
operation.
He said during the monitoring period, the new universities would be affiliated to the older generation universities for academic and administrative mentoring to be moderated by NUC.
“This is part of NUC‘s initiative for early-warning signals to detect compromises in quality for the application of corrective and remedial measures to redress such situations. Substantive licences will be issued to well-managed institutions after the three years of probation following their satisfactory performance and growth, within guidelines stipulated by the Commission,” the minister said.
Govt’s too
similarly, the Senate recently passed several bills creating government universities across the country. On July 13, 2021, the Senate at a plenary session passed bills establishing three universities. The bills are Federal University of Science and Technology Lau, Taraba state, Federal University of Agriculture and Technology, Aboh, Delta state and City University of Technology Auchi, Edo state.
The action followed the consideration and adoption of three separate reports by the Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund.
Also, in June, the Senate passed a bill to establish the Federal University of Medicine and Medical Sciences in Abeokuta in Ogun state. In April, it also passed two bills seeking to establish two federal universities in Kogi state – they are the Federal University of
Education, Ankpa and the Federal University of Agriculture, Kabba. The passage of the bills followed consideration of two separate reports on the universities presented by chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund, Ahmad Babba Kaita. The approval
brings the number of universities in the country to 197.
Experts’ views
However, in a chat with Blueprint Weekend, the executive-director of Edu-Connect, a non-governmental organisation, Dr. Sam Agbaje, said the increase in numbers does not translate to quality. He lamented the recent low ranking of Nigerian universities by Webometrics, a
respected authority in the ranking of universities globally.
“Ordinarily, the increasing number of universities in Nigeria should be a source of excitement, especially in the education sector. An increment in number means increased competition and increased choices which should lead to better standards. However, the situation with Nigerian universities seems not to support this axiom. As the number
of universities in the country increases, the standards seem to decrease. It is an ironic situation where competition does not seem to drive quality standards.
“In the most recent report released by Webometrics, a respected authority in the ranking of universities globally, no Nigerian university made it to the top 1,000 universities in the world. The report states that the highest ranked Nigerian institution, the University of Ibadan, is placed 1,258 globally and number 18 on the continent of Africa, far behind universities from South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.
“In terms of knowledge production through research, “Nigeria’s universities produce only 44% of the ‘scholarly output’ of South Africa and 32% of Egypt. This is even though Nigeria has nearly four times more universities than Egypt and over six times more than South Africa. These rankings tell a gory story of the state of university education in Nigeria and its gradual decline to global irrelevance. It is not the best way to showcase the state of education in a country touted as the giant of Africa; a country endowed with enormous human and material resources,” he said.
Similarly, a research assistant at the University of Abuja, Humphrey Ukeaja, said even though the creation of 20 private universities is not a bad initiative, the government should think beyond the mere creation of private institutions and invest heavily in public
universities.
“Moreover, in developed countries, private universities still exist but the issue is this, we have neglected the fact that we need to turn our public universities into modern edifice, architecture, and something that welcomes the public into modernism,” he said.
Likewise, in a chat with Blueprint Weekend, a professor of psychology at the University of Abuja, Ajibade Amao, urged the government to adequately fund the existing institutions instead of creating new ones.
He said, “There is also the issue of inadequate funding. Today, in Nigeria, many institutions cannot build lecture halls, students’ hostels, equip laboratories and workshops, and pay staff salaries, offer research grants, allowances, and medical bills.
“While the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommended that governments of developing nations like Nigeria should allocate between 16-25 per cent of their budgets to education, the federal government’s allocations to
education rarely go beyond 7 per cent; a far cry from the internationally recommended standard. In the 2021 budget, the federal government proposed N197 billion for education, out of a budget estimate of over N13 trillion.
“This has led to brain drain problem which has seen a mass exodus of brilliant and talented lecturers in our institutions to other countries of the world and other sectors of the economy. In the 1960s to early 1980s, several foreigners were in the nation’s institutions as teachers and students. Today, the story is entirely different. In recent times, a lot of lecturers have left Nigerian universities to join the business world. Some joined politics, while others left Nigeria for greener pastures abroad. The import of brain drain is a decline in research outputs from the nation’s institutions of higher learning.”
NANS react
Speaking, the president, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Asefon Sunday, said the approval of the new universities naturally should be a plus as they will bring more competition into the sector thereby improving research and innovations and also provide choices for students and researchers.
“Tertiary education system is now fully commercialised and investors are trouping into the sector. The approval of the private universities might end up weakening the public tertiary institutions given the reality of our system.
“Lecturers and experienced staff will be drawn from public institutions thereby weakening the human capital in public institutions, this will affect output in terms of quality of graduates from public institutions and in the long run relegate the public institutions especially state-run institutions to the choice of the poorest of the poor in the society,” he said.
Disruptions
Also, Agbaje attributed the declining standards of university education to incessant strikes by ASUU.
He said, “The frequent disruption in academic studies occasioned by trade disputes between lecturers and the government on one hand and lecturers and the university administration on the other hand has negatively affected university education in Nigeria.
“Between 2019 and 2020, Nigerian university students spent almost one year at home through a combination of ASUU strikes and the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of incessant ASUU strikes, some students spend upwards of seven years pursuing a four-year programme.
“These disruptions affect students’ learning outcomes, since lecturers find it difficult to complete their course works. In most cases, a semester’s course work is sandwiched into a few weeks, during which lectures are rushed to accommodate the time lost to strikes. It has also contributed to the culture of ‘bow and go’ at project and thesis defences, which has crept in from the political space to the academic environment. This type of academic rush is a significant threat to the attainment of quality in higher education in Nigeria.
Funding
The chairman, ASUU, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Dr.Biodun Olaniran, called on the government to implement the 26 per cent budgetary recommendation of UNESCO.
“One way which I believe the problem of funding in public universities in Nigeria can be addressed is that the government should allocate 26 per cent of the budget to the education sector. When I say the education sector, I am sure you are aware that the primary, secondary schools and tertiary institutions are all in this sector.
“Education is the bedrock of development in any nation. Without it, development will be a mere wish. So, in order to address the problem of funding in our universities, the government should implement the 26 per cent recommendation of UNESCO. I know that there are other contending areas, but if adequate attention is paid to the education sector, I believe other problems confronting us will be solved without much stress.
“We are not saying that universities should not generate funds by themselves, but education must not be commercialised because it will be priced out of the reach of children of the poor, whereas education should be a right and not a privilege.
“Old students, stakeholders and lovers of education should also be involved in the areas of endowment and project funding. They can build laboratories, libraries, hostels and other structures for the universities. This will become a culture if it is encouraged and done regularly by all stakeholders. This is one of the things that make universities abroad stay on top. Our universities will also come out of obscurity if all of us can play our roles very well,” he said.
Way out
On the way out, Agbaje called on universities to, in addition to the government funding, collaborate with private organisations and philanthropists for support. He said, “What happens elsewhere is that they have very good research outfits and attract a lot of funding for research. Part of this money goes into the research and part of it goes into the payment of the researchers, but the university also gets a certain share which it invests in infrastructure and other relevant projects.
“One way of attracting external funding for Nigerian universities is to concentrate on research that is relevant to society. That is what is happening all over the world.
“Secondly, there are certain people who don’t do research but have money which they want to put into philanthropy. It is good if we can encourage rich people to invest for the overall good of the people. This is another aspect.
“The university should encourage wealthy individuals and attract them with quality research so that they manage the money through enterprises and buildings. By doing so, the cost of running the universities will be reduced. We have a lot of rich people in Nigeria. Maybe they don’t think this is an important area or they don’t trust other people. So, it would be good if the university convinced such people in order to get extra grants.”
ASUU’s threats
Meanwhile, ASUU has threatened to resume the industrial action it suspended since December 2020 over the federal government’s allegedfailure to honour several agreements it signed with the union.
The ASUU chairperson, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Dr. Ibrahim Inuwa, stated this while speaking with journalists at the union’s secretariat.
He said the protracted strike, which was to press home their demands for the continuous survival of the public university system in Nigeria, was suspended in December after the two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the various issues providing timelines for the implementation of each of the eight items.
Inuwa, who said over seven months after the MoU was signed, only two out of the eight issues have been addressed, listed some of the issues to include earned academic allowance; funding for revitalisation of public universities; salary shortfall; proliferation of state universities and visitation panel.
Others, he added, are renegotiation, replacement of the integrated payroll and personnel information system (IPPIS) with the university transparency and accountability solution (UTAS) and withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues, but “only salary shortfall and visitation panels to federal universities have been addressed.”
He said, “Renegotiation of the 2009 agreement which would have been completed within eight weeks from the date of inauguration of the committee has up till now not been concluded, even though the Committee was inaugurated in December 2020.
“The federal government of Nigeria willingly agreed that the UTAS will replace the IPPIS as a payment platform in federal universities after it passed an integrity test. However, soon after the agreement, agents of the FGN are doing everything possible to frustrate the coming of UTAS onboard.”
Inuwa said the body language of the federal government on the proliferation of state universities shows that they are not willing to put a stop to it, stressing that instead, the federal government itself has joined in the action and thus ignoring the obvious challenges of funding.
