Last Thursday – June 6th – I was on my way to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to attend the 2nd edition of the late Ngozi Agbo Memorial Lecture, which was billed to hold at the Afe Babalola Auditorium when I got stuck in traffic for more than two hours close to the varsity . My initial thought was that the varsity might be holding its convocation which may have been the reason for the gridlock. But I’d have known if that was the case, I told myself. I then took to twitter that was when I realised that students were protesting the shutting down of the online registration portal and the slamming of a N25, 000 charges for “late registration.”
Authorities of the University immediately rescinded the action as the protest began with the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic & Research, Prof. Babajide Alo, ordering the reversal of the hiked fees for the course registration and other charges. He told students who had already paid the increased fees to meet their faculty officers with teller evidence for a refund.
While I was pondering the issue the topic came up on Classic 97.3 FM, Lagos. The discussants were discussing the Lagos State University (LASU) fees hike and the UNILAG situation with all of them recounting their days in the university and what they are today. They debated “the appropriate way” of letting authorities know about student grievances other than protests, which oftentimes turned violent. They asked a very pungent question: Is university education a right or privilege; is it for all citizens of a country? Majority of them felt it is a privilege for those who can afford it.
Issues flashed through my mind while listening to the discussion. In the first instance, there is no doubt that we are at a crossroads regarding tertiary education in the country. Administrators claimed they have battled over the years on how to provide subsidised quality education against the backdrop of dwindling resources which has forced them to take the unpopular route of fees hike. As we are all aware this often comes with dare consequences.
On Monday, students of University of Port Harcourt took to the streets protesting the increase of their fees. The fees were purportedly increased from N24, 000 and N51, 000 to N59, 000 and N150, 000 for both returning and new students respectively.
Prior to that, students of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife closed a major highway because of 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, saying inflation and the current economic realities did not support the charges, which he described as ridiculous.
OAU 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.
What is the rationale for these increments? The VC 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 were not only ridiculously low but have become very unsustainable if our university is to survive.”
Students of Kogi State University, Anyigba and others have also protested fees hike over the last few months. As emotional as this issue is, it is one that has to be handled with tact and the presentation of facts and figures to back up any increase. We lament fees increase, yet we have hundreds of thousands of Nigerians paying hard currency to foreign varsities, something we dare not dream of here. But this is the new reality.
This newspaper, in its editorial of Tuesday June 10, lamented that 75, 000 Nigerian students are currently studying in Ghanaian tertiary institutions. Presenting facts and figures, the editorial said: “Unfortunately, Nigerian students reportedly spend about $1 billion annually in tuition and upkeep. This is in stark contrast to the $751 million annual budget for all federal universities in Nigeria. We do not need any expert knowledge to recognise that what ails the system is failure of leadership…” This to me is the crux of the matter, leadership failure.
Without mincing words, I make bold to say that the fortune of tertiary educational system in Nigeria is at its lowest ebb. There has been a consistent denigration of the system in the last two or three decades. Graduates of the educational system are not only derided, but are also described as lacking in quality, low in perception and unfit in skills. Employers complain that school graduates are poorly prepared for work. In many cases, employers compensate for insufficient academic preparation by organising remedial courses for new employees. The new normal is that most companies now recruit workers from Nigerians studying abroad to the detriment of “home grown” graduates.
Developed countries subject graduates of our schools to fresh training and examination in an attempt to ensure fitness into their own system, except in mushroom institutions where they’re interested in the fees only. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our future as a nation and a people.
The national literacy rate is currently under 50 percent with about 49 percent of the teaching force deemed unqualified. There are acute shortages of infrastructure and facilities at all levels. Access to basic education is inhibited by gender issues and socio-cultural beliefs and practices, among other factors. Wide disparities persist in educational standards and learning achievements. As I have written in the past, our system emphasises theoretical knowledge at the expense of technical, vocational, and entrepreneurial education. This is the major reason why polytechnic and technical education is no longer “relevant” to us.
What Nigeria requires at the moment is for us to look ourselves eyeball to eyeball and tell ourselves the home truth. If we have the dollars to burn in some makeshift portakabin Ghanaian university why can’t we hold our government to account to do the right thing and channel such resources into upgrading facilities in our own universities?
The government must take the pivotal role of coming up with immediate, short and long term plans for the sector devoid of unnecessary politicisation. Our later policy makers failed to toe the line of those who instituted the establishment of the first generation varsities. New varsities were not established until over two decades after independence. Yet population grew rapidly and with it, the need for tertiary education.
The result is that the holding capacity in Nigerian universities was grossly inadequate leaving over 1.2 million mostly qualified Nigerian youths without access to gain admission annually. The same policy failure was what led the Lagos – Ibadan expressway remaining the way it was for more than three decades. Nobody sat down to think that the number of cars in 1978 will not be the same in 2014!
The “politics” of education demands that the good of the people should override political, sectional or individual considerations. Education formulation and consideration should be for the good of all, not that students who benefited from a presidential scholarship scheme are mainly from “APC controlled state” as a Minister was quoted as saying recently. Must everything have a tinge of politics in it?
There is also the need for a holistic reorientation, re-engineering and rebranding of education, particularly as it relates to teacher training and recruitments into the educational sector. This will not be easy, but it can be done. Ask the Ghanaians, they did it and today we are flocking there to access tertiary education. Making amends after years of decay may be painful, but whether we like it or not, we will have to amends someday.
