The other day, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State was in the news for establishing three new universities in his state. This made Delta the state with the highest number of universities. I am not particularly sure if this is a feat worthy of celebration. However, it set me thinking about the parlous state of our education system, especially as it affects the Nigerian university system, which many feel should be abolished. My immediate reaction was to dust up a thought on Nigerian universities by Chief Pascal Egerue, an insurance czar and president of Nsu Elite Congress. I felt it would be nice to share; enjoy it:
Universities will be needed in the next 15 years and more so in an Africa that is doing mere catch up with other continents. As the argument rages for restructuring of Nigeria, so it should rage for the restructuring of university education in Nigeria. To this extent, therefore, what we need is curriculum overview and review and not abolishment of university education. Nigerian university system is trapped in the colonial educational plan, which emphasised the production of civil service careerists and academic minded graduates as opposed to technically minded and entrepreneurially oriented graduates.
The effort of our policy makers to correct this mistake through the establishment of polytechnics never paid off. This is because our polytechnic education curriculum was approached in the same mindset as the universities. At the end, rather than solving a critical national problem and bridging a vital gap, all that was done was to duplicate the universities in the polytechnics. Things got complicated and rather than evaluate output, the nation foisted a mundane argument as to which is superior in ranking – university degree or polytechnic certificate.
University degrees used to be over rated in Nigeria and not any longer. It was over rated because of its British colonial origin. British education is exclusive. It serves to prepare their leaders for public administration, especially the maintenance of the complex bureaucracy, which their forebears established. Up to this day, only few of them consider university education really necessary. The rest are content with acquiring technical skills to keep them busy. This is hardly noticeable because of their functional welfare system, which guarantees everybody a good standard of living, functional facilities like the rail and general transport system, the health and housing system that created a level playing ground for every person. Again, because the English language we revere is their native language, there is this tendency among us to think that every white man and woman is a university graduate.
Unlike the British exclusive system, which we in Nigeria inherited and which has become our bane, the university system in America is both exclusive and inclusive. The Asian university experience is totally inclusive. India, for instance, created many universities in the past and continued to improve in their educational system. Today, they have the equivalent of the MITs of this world. It is instructive that Nigeria that was in the vanguard of vaccine development in the 50’s is today importing vaccines from India.
By establishing more universities in Nigeria, Nigeria is doing today what India did over 50 years ago. The difference, however, is that Nigeria woke up at the wrong time. First, our economy is in shambles and may no longer support expansion of universities. Second is the fact that these universities are being established at whims and caprices and for wrong reasons. The third fact is that the escalating insecurity situation in the country is a big constraint to universalisation of our universities. A university that is not universalised is outright rubbish. It is as unhealthy as a child born out of incestuous relationship.
So, what is killing and will kill our universities is not Google and the like. To think that Google will replace the universities is to be unduly hysterical. Google and the like will continue to play a very good role in finishing schools. The existence of Google and the like will continue to make career changes easier and knowledge integration seamless.
The biggest threat to our universities are the funding orientation, policy inconsistencies, the dominance of non pro university people in formulation of education policies; the over centralisation of university regulation through the National University Commission (this seems to make university independence and autonomy illusory) and the fact that our current economy is unsupportive of the output of our universities.
This in itself is not bad except for the fact that we in Nigeria are very unprepared for the evolving new world and may get swallowed up once again. The approach to upscaling our competitiveness in this era is not to panic. We have to get back to rigorous planning to map out concrete achievable phases towards catching up with our mentor countries. What we need for this is knowledgeable and committed leadership.
If individuals can do this, a country shouldn’t fail in it. We are a nation of very intelligent and highly gifted people. Most sadly, it is only our country that is holding us down.