I have been doing a lot of research on why we continually have problems with university education in Nigeria.
Chief of our problem is funding. Just like every other system in Nigeria, over-dependence on the govt for everything is killing our university education. I am yet to see any country in d world with a working university system that runs universities the way we run ours in Nigeria.
Universities in the United Kingdom and their yearly revenue:
Oxford – £2.5 b
Cambridge – £2.2 b
UCL – £1.5 b
Edinburgh – £1.1 b
Manchester – £1.0 b
Imperial – £1.0 b
King’s CL – £901m
Leeds – £791m
These are the total revenue/income of the top Universities in Britain per year.
Guess what, every dime u see above here is generated by these Unies on their own through income from student fees, govt grants & research grants, as well as generating their own income through charitable fundraising, investments & business activities such as ‘spin-out companies.
Meanwhile, only about a quarter of their income comes from UK student fees. The rest comes from higher fees paid by international students, charitable donations, and investments that Universities make.
I am going somewhere. Let’s break it down.
What’s govt grant? Govt grants make up about 30.6% of total revenue for most UK universities. Students’ fees is about 29.4%. Self-generated income is 20.4% & research grants about 19.6%. It varies with very little margin from University to university.
Therefore, total revenue from non-governmental grants is 69.4% while grants from the government is merely 30.6%. Therefore, in a country that wants to maximize its university educational system, the government’s contribution cannot be more than 35% at most.
We are in trouble with our university education system in Nigeria because we make universities totally dependent on the government for its revenue and running costs. That’s an aberration!
We need a total disruption of our university education system.
What we have always lacked is a leader with the political will to take tough decisions devoid of political correctness. We need to totally reform our university system & the recruitment process of Vice Chancellors.
We have VCs of public Universities behaving like State governors
Lame duck leaders, sitting down & expecting monthly draw down from the Federal government to pay salaries & enjoy the largesse of office and then wait for next month’s drawdown. Our system of administration does not excite nor tax the ingenuity of any man. It makes people lazy.
The University system has become an extension of our politics & ASUU is the political arm. It would take a total reform to unleash the dragon & let Professors prove their mettle as eggheads by leading from the front on how they can generate revenue for the running of our universities.
Recruitment of VCs must take the pattern of recruitment for a multinational where revenue targets are set and the potential candidates must be able to prove how they would meet the revenue targets for their university or go bankrupt.
Negotiation with ASUU is not what we need. They’ve been negotiating for over 30 years and nothing had come out of all the negotiations. The reason is that the federal government can never meet up with the kind of money to really cater to all the Universities.
Universities are not run that way. Govt must hand of 60% of their involvement with university education, or give a moratorium of a 10-year withdrawal plan from university funding. Reduce funding every 2 years, and recruit VCs that are forward looking and ready to work to get grants and endowment for his/her university. Let our public universities be tuition-paying universities, strengthen professional certification for people with skill, and make it recognizable like ICAN does with accounting.
This way people can be proud of their professionalism without a university degree, and be sure they can get a well-paying job.
That way only people who really needed to attend a university would do so. Presently, my boss at work here in the UK has no university degree, but he’s an experienced hand with a deep knowledge of his industry. He consults for government on reforms in the sector and an authority in his field. Under him, we have people with multiple degrees but we all defer to him because he knows his onions.
Presently, a lot of Nigerians with master’s degree are abandoning their degree certificates and getting certification in Project Management, Agile, Business Analysis, and getting into tech jobs that pay well. Nobody cares about what they studied at the University.
What employers are looking and asking for is your certification in technology-related field and your experience in that field to get employment.
I sincerely believe we can revamp this system because we have more to gain if we do or more to lose if we don’t.
by: Kay Lord