As mentioned in the first part of this piece, government officials and others questioning the university’s autonomy are either ignorant of the law or being mischievous. The university must be an autonomous system to fulfill its fundamental role in nation-building and to preserve the integrity of its certificates, which are awarded to deserving graduates for character and learning after passing through qualitative, quantitative, and temporal measures validated by internal and external assessors. Tamper with the autonomy, as allegedly done in Nigerian private universities, and the degrees may be awarded like “a gift of groundnuts.” What irony!
Nation-building through innovation, good governance, infrastructure development, effective foreign policy, increased productivity, and virtually all aspects of human progress are achieved through a university system. The system produces high-quality leaders of society who can surmount societal developmental challenges. When the system is dysfunctional, society incurs exorbitant costs and may be doomed to failure if care is not taken. This is because a malfunctioning university system produces unprepared professionals who are unable to operate and manage the affairs of society. The consequences will be dire for the nation, pushing it into an abyss of insecurity, squalor, and poverty. The picture of a rotten university system is best captured by a famous quotation of Nelson Mandela of blessed memory who said: “destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long-range missiles…., it only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by students, patients die at the hands of such doctors, buildings collapse at the hands of such engineers, money is lost in the hands of such economists and accountants, humanity dies at the hands of such religious scholars, justice is lost at the hands of such judges”. How has the university system in Nigeria been faring? What kind of graduates is the system producing? These were the questions posed last week.
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Undoubtedly, the university system in Nigeria is well designed in line with best practices to adequately meet societal needs and aspirations. The system has checks and balances for self-governance. In addition to the university’s internal organs (council, senate, convocation, and congregation), a presidential visitation panel convenes at five-year intervals to examine the functioning of the system and make recommendations for improvement. So, if the university organs are properly constituted and made to function optimally, the system will not only address societal challenges but will be able to predict future problems with ready-made solutions. However, this is not the case in Nigeria.
First, the council members are hardly appropriately constituted, especially the four external members who are supposed to be appointed by the Council of Ministers after due consultation and consideration. Political considerations influence their appointments as a kind of “democratic dividends for helping to achieve political victory/election”. Representatives of the Senate, Congregation, and Convocation are elected from among their members. Alumni dominate the convocation election; for instance, the guidelines for the election of the convocation representative of Nnamdi Azikiwe University on Friday, April 9, 2021, stated that “only Alumni members whose names are captured in the voters’ register are eligible to vote.” In some universities, alumni presidents serve as convocation representatives on the Council. Why must graduates be registered members of the Alumni before being eligible to participate in the convocation election? However, there is relative sanity within the council primarily due to the internal members.
Second, the council cannot effectively discharge its responsibilities for several reasons. Among these reasons is the way and manner in which the councils are constituted and inaugurated. Sometimes, the reconstitution of the university council takes months. Thank you to ASUU for advocating that the university council must be in place at all times. Gross under-funding is another key reason. Generally, education is grossly underfunded. For instance, from 2016 to 2019, the average annual budgetary allocation to the education sector was 7.35%, whereas in 2020 it was below 6%. This was less than half of the recommended 15-20% of the Dakar Framework for Education for All (EFA). The UNESCO benchmark allocation to education is 26% of the country’s total budget. Within this paltry allocation, the university system is the worst affected. Apart from the personnel component of the budgets, all other budget lines are grossly underfunded. How can the university recruit and retain high-quality staff and provide the necessary equipment and facilities for training and research? Another area requiring strengthening is the council’s authority to set the budget. The government substantially funds public universities, thereby making them dependent on government allocations. The Council has statutory power to prepare a budget, with input from academic departments, in a 60:40 ratio for educational and administrative expenditure. Council and university management must develop strategies to attract grants, endowments, and donations, in addition to government allocations, rather than limiting the IGR to students’ fees and other charges. The Tinubu government’s establishment of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFund) is a commendable effort to alleviate financial pressures on students on campuses.
Yet another area of attention is the manpower recruitment. Universities must recruit top-tier intellectual talent to enable the university to perform its primary functions of teaching, research, and community service. The council must study the existing statute governing the recruitment of manpower to resist external pressure to employ all kinds of labor in the labor market. The university needs only the best or at least the trainable average graduates. Some vice-chancellors make recruitment with little or no knowledge of their councils, which is an aberration in the system. A university’s governing body, such as the Senate, sometimes attempts to usurp the council’s powers. For example, one of the functions of the University of Ibadan Senate, as stated in the governance document, is “The appointment and promotion of teachers at the University” (https://www.ui.edu.ng/uigovernance), which is a clear usurpation of the council’s powers.
Much has been said about policymakers and implementers within the university system; what of the system operators (teachers) and students? ASUU, as a teachers’ union, is the most formidable and indefatigable pressure group sanitizing the university system; otherwise, Nigeria would have experienced system collapse a long time ago. Industrial action is the only weapon ASUU uses to make the government respond to the Herculean demands of the university system. The system is tired of perennial strikes, and the government has a key to preventing future strikes by genuinely engaging with ASUU to find a lasting solution. Limited financial resources are the prominent bone of contention. The government can challenge ASUU on how it can sustainably and viably fund the university system in Nigeria. It was done before; today, TETFUND is the impressive result of that kind of challenge. However, teachers are assumed to be above board; yet systemic corruption has reached the university system. There is a need to examine the excesses of a few individuals within the system, especially corrupt university lecturers and administrators. Here, the government should be commended for banning all romantic relationships between teachers and students during students’ study programs.
Finally, our population growth has led to multiple students being crammed into dilapidated classrooms and laboratories, making the environment unsuitable for teaching and learning. This has corrupted our students, leading them to do anything to pass exams without acquiring the necessary knowledge. To prevent system failure and national collapse, the government should convene critical stakeholders for an education summit. Issues to be discussed should include adequate and sustainable funding for the university system, an overhaul/review of program curricula to address emerging societal problems, and climate change mitigation, among others. May God guide our university system to ensure that most of our universities are among the top 1000 universities in the world, amen.
