Too many private individuals who would be richer making shoes or condiments are given private university licences … but they should note that it is not a profit making venture
University education is just beautiful, and if I had my way, I would want everyone to go through it. Apart from the fact that one learns a lot there (in and out of the classroom), there’s just this way it has of influencing your perception of life and everything. I am of course talking about the ones who truly go there to learn, not the ones who regard the place as their hideout from their parents while they go about their normal businesses. Please don’t ask me what that is; ask your ward.
Anyhow, I believe that most of us are fed a lot of stuff in our primary and secondary schools which we dared not question, or WAEC would miraculously move away from our planet. You were just told to accept that the world is round and forever (till you get out of there anyhow) hold your peace. I guess not many teachers would like a student who goes ‘how do you know the world is round? Prove it to me.’ I think a stick would do a lot of proving on that ‘silly student’.
University education, however, allows you to seek knowledge to your satisfaction. Not only is the stick forbidden, you also have this vast space called lecturers who are supposed to open your mind and allow you to ask intelligent questions such as ‘why does man bleed when cut by glass?’ or ‘why can we not test how hot an iron is with our finger or tongue?’ Such deep questions and others that fly around in the intellectual sphere can be asked, you guessed it, in the university. After all, no one can bring out any stick of correction.
There is also the vaster space called the university library which, if a student ensconces himself sufficiently in, can teach him just about anything he is interested in. I assure you that every tool we use in the world today is a product of that intellectual sphere of teachers who entertained deep questions and libraries that entertained the researcher who mostly slept, and sometimes read, in her hallowed rooms.
I have read of someone who set out to know just at what point an egg boils. After reading through and sleeping over many books, he headed to his laboratory where many eggs suffered an indescribable fate in his hands (or pot). I authoritatively report here that he had many eggs to eat of course. I also authoritatively report here that not many people could move near him for days afterwards. Why? Well, reader, he seemed to give off this odour of superior intelligence from somewhere around his behind. Today though, thanks to that young man’s brave and superior education, we now know that egg boils at 33/5 minutes or thereabouts. More researches are needed on that anyhow.
There are still so many questions regarding the condition of man that need to be answered and for which we need no end of researchers, believe me. For instance, we need to know if it is possible to bend over backwards and touch one’s toes. I have bent over backwards for my dog but I have not been able to touch my toes. We need to know how to make people sense that the water on the stove is boiling no matter where they are, in or out of the house. Most importantly (and my favourite one), we really need to know how to spend money and not make it run out, ever – no matter how little one has. For all of these and more, we need researchers and inventors, which universities produce.
True, I believe that Nigerian universities are working round the clock to ensure they mint them intelligentsia. As of now, records show that there are close to one hundred federal and state owned universities in Nigeria. Finding that these alone could not cater for the close to one hundred and fifty million Nigerians desiring university education for themselves, children, wards, neighbours or foes (there’s always the vain hope they might stop being foes when they get some university education), the National Universities Commission opened the floodgates to private university enterprise. Now, I understand there are more than sixty of them in Nigeria. Yet, there are cries that even these are not enough. I agree.
However, I don’t know about you but I am just a wee bit concerned about the rather long jump in the number of the private universities for many reasons. To start with, the very word ‘private’ conjures up many senses, the most noticeable being the fact that these universities are ‘personally owned’, ‘not publicly owned’. So, there is just this much you can ask of them. For example, it is difficult to begin to ask them why they are charging this much and that much amount for school fees. From sources, fees in private schools range from roughly N.2m to N1.7m annually.
In times past in the old west, private schools were owned by former teachers. Now, every prospector who has made a kobo somewhere comes to plough it into university owning mostly as an investment that will yield some day, hence the fees. The payers of these huge fees are denied many of the things they have paid for; and sometimes the staff are not paid regularly, according to information, to make the kobo stretch. There are many universities without requisite staff; some offer courses taken by only one student; and many whose students do not graduate in good time because of accreditation problems. Yet, they all seem to have a penchant for producing first class graduates.
I observe that many of these private universities have not quite keyed into the philosophy of university education. Many of the schools have their administering eye trained on the Naira and kobo coming and going, mostly from the students. One school is said to have announced a change of fees mid-semester! I do not know what the registration requirements are but I think that this focus on what should come into the pocket of the school appears to be averse to the focus of university education which is more on what should go out into the society. This is why it has been oft said that tertiary education is essentially social service. To truly be one, it requires that every kobo gained be ploughed right back in because it is never enough. So the project is not only capital intensive, it is constantly yawning for more. A situation where profit on investment is the focus translates to business savyness, not social service.
Focus is not the only thing that needs seeing to in this matter. I understand that there are private universities around here whose students are not free to move around the campus. They are rather herded around in lines from one classroom to another and have lights out time. I know; perhaps it is to curtail wayward behaviour, but it also curtails the student’s freedom of choice. University education should breed thinkers. It should teach individuals to reason and choose to do what is right at any time; that is when the results will not vary at any time in the individual’s life when his conditions change. Education should help the student to see the bigger picture and gain a greater perspective.
Too many private individuals who would be richer making shoes or condiments are running private universities. I do not begrudge anyone for wanting to own one; the country needs more thinkers and researchers to answer its myriad of questions. I only ask that owners and potential owners should note that it should not be a profit making venture but should produce innovative thinkers. Those are the ones who will propel the country into the sunrise of self-actualisation.
