I am aware that at least once every five years, the Federal Government constitutes Presidential Visitation Panels to all Federal Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education to understudy the state of affairs in these institutions. Membership of the Panels is made up of professionals and distinguished Nigerians who are not involved in the management of the tertiary institutions as either chief executives or council members at the time of their appointment. The purpose of the visitation is to review the performance of the institutions over a five-year period and advise the government accordingly. Their terms of reference cover; condition of physical infrastructures, quality of instruction and instructional facilities, management of finances, and relationship between the management on the one hand and staff and students on the other.
Based on the Panel’s report, white papers are prepared by the Federal Ministry of Education and forwarded to the institutions’ Governing Councils for implementation after approval by the President. With this process in place, it shows that the government is fully aware of the state of our public universities, but why are things then left the way they were, or even worse than they were before the visitation panels? The simple answer is that these are oftentimes only “white paper” not meant for “implementation” to move the system forward.
One area that has been a source of friction and concern in our universities is funding. Rather than bemoan the paucity of funds, I would want to see a situation where university administrators widen their horizon and develop creative abilities and legitimate initiative to generate funds to supplement insufficient grants from the government. Universities situated in state capitals are at an advantage here, this is however not to say that those in “rural” areas cannot be creative. This could be through efforts to access research funds from donor and project management finance agencies, collaboration with industries that need the theoretical outcome of researches carried out by the academic community, parent’s contribution, endowments, alumni support and other forms of private sector support.
Diversifying their resource base will definitely make them less dependent on government subvention, which greatly weakens their capacity to meet their overall mandate. Management strategy is arguably one of the most important things a university employs, enabling all of its core activities of teaching, research and wider social and economic services to be optimally achieved. It involves a thorough knowledge of the institution’s present strengths and weaknesses and making of choices about the future. Good analysis and intelligent choices will ensure the exploitation of opportunities, the avoidance of disaster and improved reputational positioning.
Apart from poor funding, another serious problem facing our universities is lack of good maintenance culture for the few facilities available. It is high time that the federal and state governments become more concerned in creating conducive environment for learning and research in our universities. Our universities should also rethink their missions, objectives and strategies to turn threats into opportunities if they really want to have a respected position within the global academic community. It is known fact that time plays an important role in the perception of education as an agent of progress and change. Education system of a given society could remain static and stagnant if it does not respond to change as dictated by time. Thus, all the stakeholders should contribute, cooperate and discharge their responsibilities diligently in order to make both our public and private universities globally competitive and locally relevant to the needs of our socio-economic development.
For quite some time now there have been calls for full autonomy for universities, there are two schools of thought here. Some believe that full autonomy will make managers of the universities proactive; knowing that they have to source funds to pay lecturers’ salaries, improve structures, fund research, cater for students’ welfare etc. Others are of the view that it may be impossible for “backwater” universities to source for funds to pay competitive salaries to attract lecturers.
This, to me, is where positioning and creativity comes in. A creative and forward looking Vice-chancellor, whether he runs a “backwater” university can position his institution by the level and relevance of the research done in his university. With these, he can source the funds required to run the university, pay salaries, encourage the students, attract scholars, and ensure that scholars are productive. I want to liken the state of our universities to the current trend where all the States run to Abuja to collect their cheques from the federation account without having an inkling on how to move their states forward. This, we can all agree, has killed creativity and led to indolent lifestyles.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will agree that our university system is currently at a crossroad and incapable of supporting Nigeria’s development. Look around, we have thousands of graduates from our universities every year, but these graduates cannot find jobs because the nation does not presently have an industrial base. Tell me any nation that has made progress without an industrial base, this is where our universities are expected to look inward and explore ways of making graduates productive before they graduate. I believe that there is a direct correlation between the quality of education in a system and the welfare of the people; our welfare is poor because the quality of our education is also poor.
In basic Economics, we were taught the theory of comparative advantage. This can be transferred to the area of autonomy as well. A University of Port-Harcourt should be strong in the area of Petro-Chemical studies because of its proximity to oil, while an Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University; Bauchi should take up the challenge and find solution to why lead is killing people in Zamfara State because of its close proximity. My point is that universities should invest more in areas of competitive advantage and concentrate on programmes that would be of immense benefit to their immediate environments. In doing this, they can attract funds for their studies from those that will benefit from the outcome of such research.
I started this piece with how I went to the university tuition free, but times have changed dramatically and today fees has gone up making the issue of autonomy scary because of its close correlation to fees increment that many stakeholders have argued against: Given our present predicament, is there a way that tuition can be free again? This is where we have to make a choice between having an education and paying for it. We should explore creative ways of paying for education that will not kill the students.
We can borrow a leaf from the United States of America and establish a system for funding education for indigent students who, due to the gradual commercialization of education may not have the opportunity of having a university education. At the college and university level there are avenues for student loan funding which is split in half; half is managed by the Department of Education directly, called the Federal Direct Student Loan Program (FDSLP). The other half is managed by commercial entities such as banks, credit unions, and financial services firms such as Sallie Mae, under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP).
There is also the Pell Grant which is money the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor’s degree or who are not enrolled in certain programs, through participating institutions. A Pell Grant is generally considered to be the foundation of a student’s financial aid package, to which other forms of aid are added. The U.S Department of Education uses a standard formula to evaluate financial information reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to determine the student’s expected family contribution (EFC).
