Why some varsities should be closed – Don
From GODDY OSUJI, Enugu
Tuesday, August 1, 2006

The Registrar of Renaissance University, Agbani, Enugu, Dr. Bisi Ojebola has suggested that any university which contravenes the National Universities Council (NUC) accreditation criteria should be shut down. He stressed that the council should continue to ensure that only those universities that are interested in giving genuine tertiary education were licensed. “And when they are licensed, they should be monitored closely so that quality of university education will continue to be enhanced and retained if our universities are to be rated among the best in the world and the certificates recognised.

If we want development to be engineered by Nigerian graduates, then we must make sure all our universities abide by the prescription of NUC. Any university that defaults should be sanctioned. If sanction will be to close that university, so be it. Because we are having collapsed structures all over the place, we have some tokunbo engineers, architects and those who do not know their left from their right.”

The registrar in an interview with Daily Sun, expressed the fear that “if we continue to allow universities to produce half-baked graduates, then calamity will be staring us in the face”. He blamed the fallen standard of tertiary education on personal branding and lack of proper infrastructural development in various universities in the country.

The registrar was full of praises for the present administration for pumping much money into the system. “Now they (universities) have direct funding whereby the Head of Department has much money to buy consumables.”

Accreditation of courses, according to the registrar, has received commendation thereby forcing most universities to be on their toes. “At the end of the exercise, so many courses were accredited and when your course is not accredited, no student will come there and you lose relevance. These are the advantages of democracy, which is now in place in Nigeria that education is being given its rightful place. I can say without contradiction that the state of education in the next few years will be different and the rating of the Nigerian universities in the next few years would rise because of what the NUC, which is the NAFDAC of university education in Nigeria, is doing,” he said.

Advent of private universities
It is not necessarily because of the fallen standard of education. I think the major issue that brought about the coming of private universities is lack of admission space for the teeming number of Nigerian school leavers. And now you add UBE. I think at the last count, we have already about 24 private universities and people are still yearning for more.

At JAMB office, they tell you how many candidates you have aspiring to occupy fewer places. You can see that the desire to have private universities is not basically informed by the poor quality of the public universities. If you go to some private universities, you will discover that they are not of the same quality. It is a matter of branding and I do not really think of any private university that will come and upset U.N.N, Ahmadu Bello and Ibadan universities. They are established institutions and have their qualities. And you have some public universities that are just there probably to garner revenue like some of the state universities. And even then, you can still talk of some state universities that are still making waves and come tops.

NUC has already told us that we are not ranking up in the world because of our limited access to ICT. Our research reports are not reflected on the world university website. But that is not to say that the situation is so bad. After all, we have erudite professors that can hold their own anywhere in the world.”
On the number of private universities in the country, the registrar disclosed that the existing ones were not enough compared with those in smaller countries that have twice the number of private universities in Nigeria. “We still need about 100 more. But it has to be structured so that the polity will not be over heated vis-a-vis the number of universities coming in the policy regulation,” he said.

Qualified manpower
I think the regulating authority is already aware of this and has given an ultimatum that in the next five years, the minimum teaching qualification is PhD. If you don’t have it, just consider yourself getting out of the system because at least you must have had much research experience before you start teaching. It is not like you go to a department almost everybody is an assistant lecturer and you find few lecturers II and the place is filled with graduate teachers just to help the boys get jobs. We cannot compromise our educational standard on the altar of any other variable.

It has to be quality. With the ultimatum given by NUC and the attractive conditions of service as in the private university where the condition of service and salaries are much better than what is obvious in public universities, once you know that I have my PhD, I can be employed by the private university, they are more likely to be motivated going for that. Most of these private universities are sponsored by religious organizations. Only a few are individually-owned universities. They have external support that assists them in recruiting quality staff. The encouragement NUC is giving to universities has made it attractive for lecturers to get research grants to carry out razor-edged type of research.

In some of these overseas universities, your retention as a lecturer depends on the attractions that you have for research grants - even the professors and the vice chancellors.

And that is what the autonomy of the university would achieve. It will make universities bring in quality lecturers that will enhance the quality relief that will come into the institution. Again, now that the government is alive to its responsibility, I am sure we can sustain it. That is why we must support democracy because whatever gains that must have accrued to the universities now, is a fallout of democracy in action. Democracy has supported education and it has started. NUC has even said that what it got from government in the last seven years is over 500 per cent of what it got in those past years. If it continues, definitely it will simmer down to lecturers, equipment and accommodation.

High cost of varsity education
To accredit university programmes requires a lot of money. That explains the high cost of education in the universities, particularly the private ones. So, if you want the best, you should be able to pay for it. I know that if Covenant University advertises for lecturers today, very many lecturers from even the present universities will like to go there because the environment is quite attractive.

So, private universities cost money. As a matter of fact, to obtain the licence, you have to do the master plan, pay for academic brief and law. I can tell you that it is only private universities that undergo much process before they are licensed. I can tell you that there is no private university in this country that does not have its academic brief, master plan and law unlike some of the government universities. The governor will just send a bill to the House of Assembly, it is promulgated and there is university there for you, after which they will start to develop their master plan. For private universities, before you get your licence, everything must be in place and all these cost money. You get your licence, you now employ quality staff, buy quality science equipment which most of the universities don’t have.

Appeal
So, my appeal is that Federal Government should continue encouraging university education by providing funding and should listen to ASUU when it is making its demands, separate the genuine ones that are in the interest of the country from those that are not.

If our universities are to be rated among the best in the world and the certificates they are awarding recognized globally, then we have to make sure all our universities abide by the prescription of NUC. Any university that defaults should be sanctioned; if sanction will be to close down that university, so be it. We are having collapsed structures all over the place, we have some tokunbo engineers, architects and those who do not know their left from their right. If we continue to allow the universities to produce half-baked graduates, then calamity will be staring us in the face.