The Fate Of Nigeria’s Tertiary Education System

By Fred Nwaozor

The last time I checked, the Nigeria’s education system, particularly the tertiary aspect, was really bleeding that only a candid and drastic measure is required towards addressing the anomaly. For decades now, acquiring higher education on the African continent – particularly Nigeria – has remained synonymous with cat and dog life owing to the unwholesome state of the various tertiary institutions of learning situated therein. The said challenge, which is very glaring, might not be unconnected with the national and local issues affecting the way the Nigerian government plans for the country’s future relevance and sustainability.

Higher education is being reshaped by globalization and digital revolution, that, every institution of learning that knows its onions wants to find itself in the world map regardless of what it would cost. Prospective students are fast becoming academically aware and making decisions about education accordingly, contrary to what it used to be. University rankings among other yardsticks of measuring greatness will increasingly have greater influence on positioning institutions in the international market, and graduate career-readiness is a growing student concern. Students are indeed looking for access to services and education across new technologies and more flexible delivery options. Towards being competitive as well as meeting these expectations, higher institutions would need to invest in expensive facilities and infrastructure. Higher citadels of learning, such as universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, are like manufacturing industries, hence, require adequate funding towards sustenance. Commencement of such business alone is strictly capital intensive, and its day-to-day running is sustained by thorough vigilance on the part of the management. Since schools are not profit-making industries unlike other capitalist firms, their functionality mainly depends on funds coming from outside rather than the students’ tuition fees.

Ironically, Nigeria’s learning citadels, precisely the higher ones, have been wearing pathetic physiognomy thus far, thereby making them produce half-baked products unabated, in the name of ‘graduates’. This set of unemployed, or perhaps unemployable, youths is littered all over the country, searching for white-collar jobs that cannot be properly handled if given to them. Since the jobs are not forthcoming, they would resort to such various social vices that would generate quick money as armed robbery, kidnapping, abduction, cultism, ritual killing, internet fraud, gambling, and so on, just to mention but a few. Considering the aforementioned phenomenon, there’s no need to say that about eighty per cent (80%) reason Nigeria is currently awash with all kinds of dubious acts is the ongoing plight of unemployment, which is on the rampage. But if the so called job-seekers were well equipped/tutored while in school, they would have rather considered becoming employers of labour. They can only become self-reliant if the necessary teachings and trainings were given to them during their school days. Take a walk to any university across the federation and see things for yourself. Facilities including laboratories, libraries, workshops, and even lecture classes/halls are nothing to write home about. Most of the institutions are, to assert the least, like glorified primary schools. What about the lecturers’ offices coupled with their wages? An average politician would go home with millions of naira on a weekly basis whereas a lecturer, on the average, cannot even boast of a hundred and fifty thousand naira (#150,000) monthly. It would interest, probably shock, you to note that the basic salary of a ward councillor in Nigeria is about five times greater than the overall monthly wage of a professor who is reckoned to be the most learned in any society. A lot has really gone wrong, and it is high time we made amends toward attaining the anticipated greatness. Each year, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), among other labour unions in higher learning citadels, embark on industrial action for a particular cause, yet the demon ravaging the Nigerian schools remains seemingly unbeatable.

The pertinent and inevitable question now is: how do we unravel this lingering mystery, or should we continue folding our arms and watch it deteriorate into a more forbidden scene? First, governments at all levels must ensure that heads of the institutions in question, to include vice-chancellor, rector, and provost for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, respectively, are strictly appointed via merit instead of mere favouritism which is usually the case. Astute administrators, or individuals of note, ought to be appointed to serve in such capacities rather than engaging a mere benchwarmer. Sometimes, the poor state of these schools is partly attributed to the kind of person piloting their affairs. In most cases you would observe that a vice-chancellor, for instance, would spend several years on seat, but end up not implementing any consequential project throughout his/her five-year tenure. This aspect of misappropriation of funds is, for quite some time now, being harboured as a culture in most existing higher citadels of learning across the federation. Similarly, the concerned quarters must ensure that only qualified individuals are employed as lecturers; engaging unqualified teachers in the institutions have succeeded in causing untold harm to the future of the teeming students, particularly the undergraduates. The wages of the lecturers must also be taken as priority by the governments and other concerned bodies, and those in privately-owned institutions should equally be treated as such. Universities, being research-oriented institutions, cannot thrive under the ongoing Treasury Single Account (TSA) regime of the present administration in Nigeria. The education sector – especially higher institutions – deserves unalloyed financial autonomy, thus they ought to be exempted from such mechanism. Since the initiative is targeted to curb corruption, the government can set up a formidable and reliable agency that would continually monitor how the schools are faring. If anyone is found culpable in the process, he/she ought to be brought to book without much ado.

It’s very pathetic and an eyesore that our universities are yet to commercialize their patents in an era where the society is expected to mainly depend on higher institutions as regards research works, tech-driven innovations and development. The fact is, adequate funding of higher education, which has been taken aback for decades now, is the only way the government can make the affected institutions compete globally. There are absolutely no two ways about it. Though the ongoing Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) scheme is trying, a lot still needs to be done. Most times these funds are utilized on laboratory equipment that cannot be calibrated, or library materials such as books that are outdated, thereby making them serve as mere monuments or decorative materials as long as they last in the various benefiting institutions. Taking into cognizance that funding shouldn’t be left for the government alone, the head of these institutions must be prepared to reach out to the relevant bodies in a bid for collaboration and endowment initiatives. This is why a well cerebral and smart individual is meant to be appointed to pilot the affairs of the citadels in question. The Labour unions such as ASUU and NAAT, among others, on their part must endeavour to run an independent unionism at all times, rather than barely indulging in tokenism. The handwriting should invariably be clearly written on the wall for the concerned government regardless of the circumstance. Hence, they mustn’t spare the rot and spoil the child. They ought to acknowledge that any foul play they engage in is to the detriment of their students’ future, and that of Nigeria at large. If you have a cause you are fighting for, concentrate on how to drive to the end instead of succumbing to baseless and unfounded threats in the long run. This recessionary era is obviously the ripe time to get the funding of the Nigeria’s higher education right, because any procrastination would surely be at the expense of the anticipated economic turnaround. Think about it!