Okeke, C.C., PhD
Department of Social Science Federal Polytechnic, Oko
Abstract
The current National Policy on Education for Nigeria made copious provisions for higher education, particularly university education. Teaching, research, dissemination of information, pursuit of service to the community, and being a store house. If knowledge, are some of the functions of higher education. Universities in addition, are expected to develop high level manpower, promote national development and serve as an effective instrument for cementing national unity. The extent to which these functions are performed as evidenced from the observable and perceptible activities of the universities as well as problems that beset them constitutes the mail/thrust of this paper,
Introduction
Higher education in Nigeria, as expressed by the National Policy on Education (1981:22) includes universities, polytechnics, colleges of technology, colleges of education and such institutions as may be allied to them. The focus of this paper on university education is predicated on the policy’s provision that “universities are one of the best means for developing national consciousness.” Principally, universities, it provides, should aim at:
- the acquisition and inculcation of the proper value- orientation for the survival of the individual and society;
- ii. The development of the intellectual capacities of individuals to understand and appreciate their environments;
- iii The acquisition of both physical and intellectual skills which will enable individuals to develop into useful members of the community;
iv The acquisition of an objective view of the local and external environments.
In addition to the above, Omoregie (2004:10), citing Ukeje (1977), included such other aims as:
a. The development of intellectual curiosity which will enable the individual to pursue further intellectual development.
b. The development of positive attitude of thought which would enable the individual act positively and to value and appreciate the worth and dignity of the individual human being and his capacity to contribute to the general good of the society.
c. Development of scientific attitude or attitude of intellectual honesty which will enable the individual to develop a sense of objectivity, minimize prejudice and superstition.
Should the universities be able to attain the required objectives, appropriate manpower for national development would not only be produced, but also, according to Curie (1970), create a new class sufficiently large and hence sufficiently strong to establish its own values of justice, selection on merit, flexibility, empiricism and efficiency. Universities have for long been recognized as agents of development in the area of manpower provision and improvement, as well as social, cultural and economic emancipation (Mosha, 1986; Mazuri, 1992; and Sawadago, 1994). nut Nigerian universities are known to be plagued by a lot of crisis which Bako (2002) observed, has landed the country into some intractable quagmire.” According to Ajayi (2001), ‘Universities have lost their integrity, credibility and professionalism. In the same vein, Ayandele (2001) referred to what is left of Nigeria’s universities as ‘chamel house’ that are ramshackle decrepit, self immolating, laughing stock of the universities today:
It is the task of this paper, therefore, to identify and r-ray the areas of crisis of our university education and suggests how best they could be, at least, ameliorated, so that its goals can be nobly attained.
Areas of crisis
Beginning form 1948 when the University College, Ibadan, was established, university education in Nigeria has witnessed tremendous growth rate. The first generation Universities – Nsukka (1960) Ibadan (1962), Lagos (1962), Ahmadu Bello (1962) Ife (1962) and Benin (1970) raised the hope of Nigerians as those universities pioneered manpower development and nation building activities. Gradually, more and more universities sprang up and subsequently, an astronomical increase in the growth of universities has come to the fore thereby bringing the number to fifty four including 25 (federal) 19 (state) and 10 (private) universities (JAMB, 2003/2004 Brochure and Approvals by the NUC).
Nigerian universities have made significant .contributions to national development effort, particularly in the areas of supplying the much-needed high level manpower for Nigeria’s rapidly expanding economy (Presidential Commission on Salary and Conditions of Service of University Staff, 1981). Thecommission further pointed out that the vast expansion of the public sector and the phenomenal growth recorded in the individual sector of the economy during the past two decades would not have been possible without the dedicated cooperation of the university system. It, regrettably, observed that the universities faced financial constraint and consequential dilution of quality of education they provided.
The above situation report was reinforced by Oni (1999a) when he observed that;
Nigerian Universities have produced the leadership corps in all sectors of the economy. The graduates have made impressive contributions in the development and transmission of knowledge in the arts, agriculture, science, medicine, etc. Among these can be found internationally reputable scholars and researchers in various fields. This is history. Today, the Nigerian university is in midst of serious trouble. Caught within bad political management and serious economic dislocation that seem to tear the Nigeria state apart, the university as an important structure within the stormy sea cannot remain an island insulated from the troubles. Impliedly, university education in Nigeria has degenerated, its glorious past notwithstanding. The Nigerian society is plagued by many ills and the university system cannot be insulated from those ills
Literature is replete with the types of crisis that bedevil university education in Nigeria, particularly the Federal Universities. For instance, the Academic Staff Union (ASUU), Ahmadu Bello university Zaria, chapter, at it Congress held on August 22, 1996, indicated in its resolution as follows:
The crisis in the universities revolves around the collapse of the institution due to lack of facilities for teaching, leading to collapse in structures, and the definite fall in standard of university education, and the education system in the country as a whole to the extent since the late 1980s, universities in other parts of the world, including the African countries, no longer recognized Nigerian university degrees. The strike in the universities is part of efforts by the academic staff to persuade government to address the crisis through the instrument of collective bargaining.
The indictment on university education in Nigeria by the academic staff union portends great danger for the country’s ivory tower, particularly as regards quality of university degrees. Lack of facilities for teaching is a great draw-back to quality and standard and therefore, antithetical to: the cause of university education. The lack of facilities and consequent poor standard are further exacerbated by the astronomical expansion of the universities in terms of student enrollment and number of universities. Such expansion has brought in its trail the additional crisis of under-funding as a result of inadequate budgetary allocation to the universities. A study conducted by the World Bank to inform the design of a proposed ‘Nigeria University System Innovation Project’ observed that there had been steady decline in recurrent funding of the universities (Harnett, 2000). A Commission on the Review of Higher Education in Nigeria (1991) also confirmed the inadequate funding of higher education by government. A wide gap in funding was observed in all federal universities for the period 1981-1991. Table I explicates the details
TABLE 1
Federal universities a roriate need and allocation, 1980/1990
Year | Requested | Recommended/N UC | Received | %Allocation |
1980/81 | 352.99m W | 290.52m W | 215.97 | 74% |
1981 | 508.56 | 343.51 | _3_2_L9_J ______ | 94% |
1982 | 710.77 | 579.63 | 334.62 | 58% |
1983 | 767.52 | 634.53 | 371.47 | 59% |
1984 | 821.34 | 634.37 | 428.39 | 68% |
1985 | 894.61 | 446.02 | 421.9 | 95% |
1986 | 2 17. 14 billion | 150.52 billion | 104.8 | 70% |
1987 | 176.16 | 125.99 | 65.15 | 50% |
1988 | 150.24 | 138.14 | 81.04 | 59% |
1989/90 | 139.07 | 104.05 | 66.29 | 65% |
Source: Main Report: Higher Education in the Nineties and Beyond.
Dabalen and Oni (2000) have attributed under funding of the universities to
such confounding factors as ‘a phenomenal increase in student enrollment, the buffeting
storms of inflation, and the rapid decline in the value of the naira.1
Bako (2002: 15), commenting on the crisis of university education in Nigeria, said inter alia:
At the rootof these problems are the structural and institutional deformities which the Nigerian universities have developed over the last three decades. Theseproblems are not only those of chronic under funding by the Nigerian state, but also highly distorted internal budgeting and employment structure which make them highly unsuitable for academic and scholarly production and improvement of the society at large
A comparative exposition of funding pattern of university education in Nigeria and some other African countries reveal the following: Nigeria spends less then’ 1 % of GNP on education while sub-Sahara Africa as a whole spends 3.4% (World bank on NUSIP, Novemberl9, 2001:5). Thedocument gave the percentage of GNP spending on education between 1994 and 2000 as 0.76%.
Angola spends seven times in proportion to its GNP more than Nigeria; South Africa, 11.9 times; Ghana, six times; Kenya, 9.29 times; and Malawi. 3.71 times (Obikoye, 2002:40). Further revelation showed that allocation to education as a percentage of budget has been consistently low. Between 1984 and 1998, it was less than 10°;Q; it worsened in 2000 and 200 1 when it dropped to 8.36% and 7% respectively, but the UNESCO approved education spending in terms of GNP and National budget is 25%. It has been reported that most of the developed and rapidly developing countries adhere to this standard and even shoot beyond (Obikoye, 2002:47; Ukeje, 2002:37; and World Bank, 2001).
According to the World Bank report (December 19, 2002: 13 and NUC Report from 1980 to date), Nigeria’s Federal University system spends only 1.3% of its budget on research, while the university employment structure is distorted. Thus, the teaching and research staff of all the federal universities are less than 20%, while 80% goes to the administrative staff. Analytically, the administration takes the lion share of the resources, while teaching and research are underplayed. Commenting on this sorry state of lopsidedness, Bako (2000: 16) laments: … it is the political academic staff that appropriate and allocate those resources both to themselves and other sectors of the university, hence the massive politicization of the university offices, which both the authoritarian and democratic regimes have not been able to address and reform. We cannot expect the Nigerian universities to play any significant role in the 21st century cultural, scientific and technological development sector.
University lecturers in Nigeria work under difficult conditions in terms of workload particularly with regard to lecturer/student ratio. The UNESCO norm is 1: I 0 but the existing situation in Nigeria is I: 19 (UNESCO Statistical Year book, 1997). A comparative study of five developing countries including Nigeria, two middle income countries in Latin America, as well as two developed countries in Europe provided the following trend as shown in table 2.
Table 2
University lecturer/student ratios in selected countries
Country | Lecturer | Students | Ratio |
Ethiopia | 1,440 | 26,415 | 1: 18 |
Kenya | 4,392 | 35,421 | 1 :8 |
Nigeria | 12,395 | 236,261 | 1:19 |
South Africa | 13,326 | 380,184 | 1:28.5 |
Zimbabwe | 1,618 | 13,045 | 1:8 |
Mexico | 72,742 | 125,207 | 1:7 |
Brazil | 172,828 | 1,716,263 | 1:10 |
United Kingdom | 97,274 | 923,878 | 1 :9 |
Germany | 243,303 | 1,856,542. | 1:7.6 |
Source: UNESCO Statistical yearbook, 1997-
In furtherance of the high ratio, Professor Yesufu (1996) provided a pathetic picture under which lecturers in the Nigerian universities work, when he observed as follows:
The student – teacher ratios are worsening in virtually all disciplines, laboratories are either non-existent or completely denuded of essential equipment and experimental consumables. Libraries cry out for updating with current books, periodicals and research findings. Teachers are grossly underpaid and have had to resort to migration to other countries to seek how to keep body and soul together and further their intellectual development.
Regrettably, he re-echoed what the ASUU, ABU Chapter said when he concluded that the quality of graduates produced by the Nigeria universities was so poor that their impact on the national economy in terms of productivity was generally below the required standard for a developing economy.
Poor standard of university education in Nigeria is predicated on the mammoth problems bordering on government negation of university autonomy and other problems. As observed by ASUU (1996) which lamented the hijack of universities by the federal government, particularly the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The complete negation of the autonomy of the universities to the normal functions of the universities like admission, appointments of principal officers, the acquisition of teaching and research equipment, the selection and purchases of books, and journals, have been taken away from the universities and centralized at the federal level. This lack of autonomy makes it impossible for the internal organs of governance, council, senate, congregation and the committees, to direct affairs of the universities. Consequently, there is no accountability, rather, the misuse of scarce resources, indiscipline by officers, staff and students, have become serious problems, with the university organs so incapacitated and unable to cope with them. The universities no longer operate as academic institutions leading to lack of confidence, frustration and low morale.
From the barrage of problems with which our university education is saddled, it seems quite preposterous that our universities will be. expected to perform above board. But this dwindling image has to be salvaged or redeemed if our universities are expected to positively transform the Nigerian society socially, politically, economically and technologically by pioneering exemplary leadership.
Banjo (2002) blamed the National Universities Commission (NUC) for its shoddy approach to accreditation of courses notwithstanding the deterioration in the quality of education offered in the universities. The failure of government to provide the necessary resources to improve standards accounts for the failure of university education. But it is a common knowledge that the level or quality of social capital determines the extent and pace of economic development (World Bank, 1993,1998; Mansell and When, 1998).
Ade-Ajayi (2001) has blamed the decadence in the Nigerian universities on the ruling class that has compromised ethics in the universities, a situation that has left a sour taste in the mouth of its operators. With such decadence, ‘universities have lost their integrity, credibility, and professionalism’ (Ade Ajayi, 2001). Jn the same vein, Ayandele (2001) referred to Nigeria’s universities as ‘ramshackle decrepit, self-immolating, laughing stock of the world universities today because of the abuse of visitation powers, the romance of professors with the political ruling elite, the untoward and consistent doctoring of the laws of the institutions to dominate them.’ He identified other areas of crisis to include: internal siege laid on the system by staff unions, role of vocal minority in university governance, and loss of grip over students. As Ade Ajayi (2001) asserts, ” … no where do the original Act of universities list the visitor among the constituent bodies making up the university.” But as Adesina and Awosusi (2004:7) observed:
… the institution of the visitor is now a major feature in the legal structure of Nigeria universities. The visitor, over the years assumed legislative, the executive and judicial powers. The abuse of the office of visitor … has been the major factor that has rubbished ethics in the university system. In the early years, the visitor occupied the role of an august guest at convocations, but today it has gotten to the ridiculous level whereby he dons the best decorated academic robe. In Nigeria today, convocation ceremonies do not commence until the visitor or his representative (arrives). Academic staff are virtually alienated at convocation function … the exaltation of the visitor is apparently a survival strategy borne out of the need to lobby the visitor for funding.
The powers being exercised by the visitor apparently run counter to the internal administration of the university and stifle the principal officers of some imaginative initiatives and discretions to properly run the university. Furthermore, the autonomy of the university cannot prosper under such a bottled-up atmosphere.
The office of the visitor apart, Akinkugbe (2003:8) has observed what he regards as the erosion of powers of the senate. While he regards the senate as “the real factory where knowledge is manufactured and from where it is disseminated” the NUC decree of 1974 and its subsequent amendments (1985, 1993) empower the NUC to take over the major functions of the senate particularly in the areas of organization and control of faculties and other departments as well as the determination of Minimum Academic Standard (MAS), accredit programmes, establish colleges and determine the commencement and duration of academic courses and semesters (Adesina and Awosusi 2004:8).
Other areas of crisis include election of academic leadership in which seniority and academic excellence could be easily jettisoned and inability of inexperienced deans to dispense academic judgment with objectivity, fairness and firmness (A de Ajayi, 2003: 1 0), government intervention in the administration of disciplinary matters within the university is another moral dilemma. The power to discipline students is vested in the Minister of- Education (Student Union Activities Control and Regulation Act of 1989). The law neither recognizes the senate nor the Vice Chancellor in matters of student’s discipline. This gives the students the leeway to look down on the university authorities and the lecturers because they (students) now know that they can challenge in the law court any disciplinary fiction taken against them because of the 1989 Act. (Akper and Fagbongbe, 1999). Related to students discipline is the growing wave of cult activities on campuses. Such activities have often disrupted academic activities, caused loss of lives and seriously challenge the university administration where the activities take place. How to wage lasting war on the dastardly acts poses a big challenge to university education in Nigeria.
Still on discipline, the frequency of strikes in Nigeria’s universities has become a major concern to students and parents, as duration of courses is no longer predictable. Consequently, many parents, who can afford it have started-to send their children overseas for training because of inconsistent calendar and poor facilities resulting in serious decline of standard (Dabalen and Oni, 2000).
Summary
The paper highlighted some of the provisions for higher education according to the National policy on Education. It made brief discourse on the evolution of university education in Nigeria and the contributions and the positive impact made by it. However, the expansion of universities in terms of number and student enrolment coupled with a number of problems ranging from under funding, indiscipline, irregular academic calendar occasioned by frequent staff strikes and at times students cult activities, poor leadership, government meddlesomeness in university governance, among others, aggregate to weigh down the university administration and correspondingly impacts negatively on the quality and standards of teaching and learning.
Conclusion
The mounting problems of university education in Nigeria are overwhelming. But the major areas of crisis remain under funding, autonomy and governance. Unreliable academic calendars as a result of frequent strike actions is another major area of concern.Since government has regulatory power over the universities, it has a preponderant influence to rectify some of the anomalies. However, government cannot go it all alone. But it has the legitimacy to bring in the World Bank, organisations and other agencies to the rescue of our university education particularly in the area of under-funding. Administratively, government should give university autonomy a chance to thrive. Meddle- someness in university governance in the areas of leadership, discipline and internal regulatory mechanisms should be stopped by government. Such measures would facilitate the improvement of quality both in teaching and learning. Such quality improvement will, no doubt, enhance national development. This is predicated on the dicta by Verspoor (1990:20-23) that: The success or failure of development policies depend on the quality of people who design the policies and manage the policy environment. Policies for capacity building in the knowledge industry hinge on the existence of a well-educated labour force in the sector. Hence, to be effective, university education reform requires that the development of human capital through graduate education in science and technology should constitute the core of overall national development strategy.Development of some specialized capabilities in Consultancy and research as well as development expertise is needed in order to develop alternative sources of revenue by universities. This will help augment government financial burden.
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