Some of the challenges confronting universities in Nigeria, especially in the 21st century include, among others, university administration, admission of students, teaching and learning using ICT, violence among students and the increasing wave of crimes in university campuses, coping with the increasing demand for university education as well as funding for research by scholars and equipping universities with facilities to meet the yearnings of the universities communities and beyond.
Of these challenges, the increasing demand for university education, funding for research by scholars and equipping universities with facilities are critical. Varsities often resort to constantly reviewing fees charged as a way out, but the fees issue – as has become evident – has economic, moral and emotional components which we have been unable to successfully disentangle in Nigeria. In some cases, fees are reviewed without recourse to detailed explanations to why.
In my piece The fees palaver (June 12, 2014), I did mention the case of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile Ife, which was closed recently following protest over fees hike which the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Bamitale Omole, said had become inevitable. He said the N5, 300, which the university charged for 10 years was no longer realistic because inflation and the current economic realities had made the charges “ridiculous.”
OAU, it would be recalled, recently increased the charges of its newly admitted students from N37,150 and N42,150 to N 82,400, N92,700 and N95,700 (acceptance fee inclusive), depending on the faculties. The fees for old students of the institution were also increased from N5,300, N7,800, N10, 300 and N12,800 per session to N19,700, N30,700 and N33,700 for different faculties respectively.
Unlike other institutions who do not take the pains to explain the rationale for whatever action taken, the OAU authorities at least tried to give reasons – even though those reasons might not go down well in some circles – for the new fee regime. The VC had explained that high inflation rate and efforts of the management to sustain the academic standard in the university necessitated the increment.
“Precisely during 2004/2005 academic session, the university administration reviewed the charges paid then, which were in line with the economic realities of that time. The charges are still being paid to date after 10 years. It is evident that the current economic realities have made those charges unrealistic and unsustainable.”
He also dwelled on the issue of purchasing diesel, paying electricity bill and comparing fees paid in other federal universities which made “charges paid by students in OAU not only ridiculously low but have become very unsustainable if our university is to survive.”
These are cogent reasons unless we pretend not to live in present day Nigeria. Weeks later it appeared the university authorities finally put on their thinking caps and started exploring other ways of grappling with its own dilemma. Cashing in on the enormous goodwill – especially from its alumni members – it sent out emails soliciting for support.
”Do you know that Great Ife has over one hundred thousand (100,000) graduates? Imagine if every one of us gave at least N1000 a year, there would be N100 million available annually for the development of our alma mater. Just imagine the ease with which we would build a 500-seater lecture theatre which costs N75 million (approximately)…” part of the email read.
To me, that is thinking even though it is not a guarantee that all the 100,000 graduates would give or that all the 100,000 are still alive today, but at least someone conceived the idea which might end up addressing some critical needs. Things are changing so rapidly that we need creative tools to address these challenges as is becoming evident that government alone cannot solve all problems.
The Economist report I made reference to last week pointed out that America government funding per student fell by 27% between 2007 and 2012, while average tuition fees, adjusted for inflation, rose by 20%. In Britain tuition fees, close to zero two decades ago, can reach £9,000 ($15,000 a year). This goes to show the problem is universal, but the critical issue here is others are looking for solutions while we simply abhor change thinking the world is static or waiting to move at our own pace.
The myriad of unemployed graduates we have in the country has been a wakeup call for years and from all indications, the government has not done enough to address this crisis. We are where we are because policy makers fail to see into the future, especially in the area of employment dynamics. In the same report, the newspaper also pointed out that in the standard model of higher education, people go to university; earn a degree which guarantees them an entry ticket to the professional classes and ultimately a climb up the corporate ladder.
But as it rightly pointed out, automation is beginning to have the same effect on white-collar jobs as it has on blue-collar ones. It quoted a study from Oxford University which says, 47% of occupations are at risk of being automated in the next few decades. As innovation wipes out some jobs and changes others, people will need to top up their human capital throughout their lives. But a critical look at our varsities and polytechnics show clearly that we are still stuck in the past as the curricula of most of the courses offered in our institutions show. Most are totally at variance with current realities.
I had the shock of my life recently when a graduate of computer science told me he has never used a computer before! When I probed further to know what instructional material he used during the course of his studies he said they were mainly notes from his lecturers and some textbooks if he had the fortune of coming across them. He is however job hunting looking for the “highest paying” company to work in.
It is only an individual who lives in denial that would question how technology has forever changed the way things are presently done. But it is sad that most of our institutions are still in the analog age. But the world has moved on, thanks to technology, especially the internet which the magazine predicted “will upend higher education.”
This is how it described the scenario: “Now the MOOC, or “Massive Open Online Course”, is offering students the chance to listen to star lecturers and get a degree for a fraction of the cost of attending a university.”
Some readers would be familiar with Coursera, which says it has over 8 million registered users. Though its courses are free, it reportedly bagged its first $1m in revenues last year after introducing the option to pay a fee of between $30 and $100 to have course results certified. Another, Udacity, has teamed up with AT&T and Georgia Tech to offer an online master’s degree in computing, which is less than a third of the cost of the traditional version. Harvard Business School will soon offer an online “pre-MBA” for $1,500.
This is where the change gets dicey. If this trend catches there is the likelihood it will disrupt different universities that are not fully prepared to embrace the change. The prediction is that the big names will be able to sell their MOOCs around the world. But mediocre universities may suffer the fate of some in the newspapers industry.
Were the market for higher education to perform in future as that for newspapers has done over the past decade or two, universities’ revenues would fall by more than half, employment in the industry would drop by nearly 30% and more than 700 institutions would shut their doors. The rest would need to reinvent themselves to survive.
Though painting the scenario from a western perspective, we have a lot to learn here because we now have more federal and state varsities that still depend fully on over stretched public sector funding. The crises we’ve been witnessing in the sector should serve as a wakeup call to creative action.
