It is not within the province of doubt that the Nigerian education system is nothing to write home about. As I once heard a university Professor observe, our universities are worse, infrastructure-wise, than some high schools in South Africa. Many graduates leave the system not better than prior to their admission, some even worse...
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth – Diogenes (412-323BC)
PREAMBLE
In 2011, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, described Nigeria’s educational system as a colossal failure and called for the declaration of a state of emergency in the sector. At a later date, Soyinka in fact went on to propose a shutdown of all tertiary institutions for two years to enable the adequate tackling of the ‘inherent rot’.
Though a revolutionary, Soyinka is not alone in his observation. His voice might have been loudest but he clearly spoke the minds of every Nigerian who has tasted from the bitter-kola of our schools. He spoke the minds of the millions who are out of school, the millions who are in school and the many more who constitute the country’s 59.6 per cent illiterate population.
It is not within the province of doubt that the Nigerian education system is nothing to write home about. As I once heard a university Professor observe, our universities are worse, infrastructure-wise, than some high schools in South Africa. Many graduates leave the system not better than prior to their admission, some even worse. Our children constantly troop en masse beyond the Atlantic in search of Ivy League citadels while the population of foreign students in local campuses is like that of mankind on Mars. No wonder everyone who has enough money and who is in his right senses will not waste time in getting his children abroad away from the tragedy in our academes. Even President Muhammadu Buhari is unrelenting in giving his children the best education, a thing which is to Nigeria a far cry.
Our education system is deeply stuck in the stagnant waters of mechanistic theorisation. We have engineers who do not move near engines, doctors who technically know no better than conductors and Professors of Mechanical Engineering who still take their engines to Mechanics for engineering.
Students learn under the worst of conditions – under trees, on the bare floor, in the rain and sun. The afflictions of the sector are so tragic that they emit tears and so plentiful that if the Niger River turned to ink, it may not aptly capture them. In short, quantitatively and qualitatively, the ‘Giant of Africa’ is still lurking in academic doldrums.
If thus are the priests, it is said, God bless the congregation. Likewise, if the best is not good enough, I say God bless the average entities. And so University of Ibadan, which prides itself as the first and which severally (and most recently by the NUC) has been ranked the best in Nigeria, is the fairest measure of the sector’s performance. Besides, would it not be most inequitable to judge the United States by its ghettoes and the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the Aso Rock? So, what does the adjudged best in our system say about the entire system? How well has the university represented the giANT nation? Is it truly primus inter pares or is its premier status akin a snail in the midst of the horned animals of the world?
A little bit of history
University of Ibadan was established as far back as 1948 by a wave of the British imperialist’s magic wand. It was the best thing to happen to that generation of youth. They had the good fortune of furthering their studies, getting intellectually empowered and basically learning in Britain while not leaving their fatherland. This generation eventually gave birth to the like of Chinua Achebe, Professor Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Chukwuemeka Ike, Professor Emeritus Jacob Ade Ajayi among others. To sum up, University of Ibadan at the outset was characterised by such qualities as high-calibre members of staff, a rich socio-academic culture, high standard physical and pedagogical facilities and a manageable teacher-student ratio…
In the first republic after independence, student intake started increasing but new halls of residence (designed to accommodate two persons per room) were built. Also, international academic links were struck up with institutions such as the Ford, Rockefeller, and Nuffield foundations which funded programmes, facilities and facilitated staff development. At this period too, primacy was given to staff growth as academics were polished through attendance at conferences, research and travel grants, and sabbatical leave attachment with internationally-acclaimed centres of excellence. But then, the autonomy of the institution was under risk through a steady pollicisation of its governing council.
The real tragedy struck first during the civil war between 1967 and 1970. The war had led to an exodus of foreign nationals and academic staff of Igbo origin (including Kenneth Dike, the then Vice Chancellor) due to security threat. In the same vein, importation of books and other resources was almost impossible, while government funding dwindled due to the militaristic pursuit of one Nigeria.
After the war, the quality and esteem of the school took a really sharp dive into murky waters. Experienced staff left the university for greener pastures available in newly established tertiary institutions such as University of Ife, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Nigeria, University of Benin among others. Also, as the government then had much more mouths to feed, subvention from government reduced even further. In addition, Marxist-oriented lecturers were sacked in 1978 thus reducing radical scholarship and profound intellectual discourse.
In the second republic, more expert hands were lost to government encouraged and mushrooming private universities. Also, the university continued to expand through the creation of three new faculties (law, technology and pharmacy) and more departments. This, without doubt, greatly overstretched already taut resources.
Equally worthy of note is that in the second era of military rule, state interference got elevated to the top floor, haphazard funding became the order of the day and academic fermentation became history. According to Materu, Obanya, and Righetti, “this period thus ended with Ibadan drained of its senior academics, its facilities depleted, its flawed policies still yielding large student numbers and a bourgeoning administrative structure, its subvention from government barely covering only staff salaries, its external links severed, and its research output in deep decline.”
Sixteen years after democratic rule, it is unfortunate that the brain drain has still not been reversed. Sixteen years after democratic rule, our facilities are still in a state of disrepair. Sixteen years after, University of Ibadan and her sister-institutions are still racking their wits in working out unequal equations of subventions and remunerations. I wonder if things are not in fact worse off now than they were under the jackboots.
Today, the university is ranked 14th in Africa (2016 Times Higher Education World University Rankings) and between 601 and 800 in the world (same source). According to Webometrics in 2016 however, the university is sitting comfortably at number 1296 in the world (at least a great leap from position 2310 of the previous year). I’m sure drawing comparisons with other African universities will only end up breaking someone’s heart, but of course Ghanaian, South African and Egyptian citadels are performing better. Today, the university is indeed struggling for breath. Perhaps only its nostrils are still above sea level; that is if it is not even depending on a snorkel to survive. Lack of adequate funding seems to be at the root-cause of our misfortune. And the federal government which is always eager to lay claim of ownership upon federal universities is looking the other way.
In a Special Release dated 5th of April 2016, the university lamented what it called ‘inadequate funding of personnel cost by the federal government’. In it, it was revealed that between December 2015 and March 2016, there existed a shortfall of approximately ₦599 Million between personnel grant from government and the gross pay. I wonder whence the university is expected to get enough to bridge this berth. And of course, other expenses are hanging around too like the Sword of Damocles. On electricity alone, an average of ₦28 million is spent on a monthly basis.
To further illustrate the extent of the mess we are in, on the 12th of May 2016, the University Registrar announced that hard copies of the University Bulletin will no longer be produced “owing to paucity of funds and in order to save cost.” Students can bear witness to the unbefitting pool of capitalism which the school has been plunged into out of desperation. It is producing water (both sachet and bottled), bread (both sliced and otherwise). We also have the hotel, fishery, bookshop, radio station, bookshop, zoo and so on. One would think we are speaking of Dangote’s largest competitor.
But then, money is not the only thing quarrelling with the university, resources generally too – from bed space to lecture rooms, from laboratory apparatuses to current library materials, from standard toilet facilities to such basic things as light and water. Rooms originally built for two persons are now serving as refuge for three, four, five persons or even more. And then certain lectures have also been beheld to be held under very disgraceful conditions – under the sun, on rusty furniture or with half of the class standing. It is befuddling that, despite these eyesores, the school keeps admitting more and more students every year. While 2,839 students were admitted in 2012, this figure jumped to 4,008 this year.
The saddest part is that though the government had not been willing to sacrifice to ameliorate these aberrancies, it still had the temerity to impose a ‘no tuition’ order and a limit for accommodation levies. Just like an irresponsible parent who provides very little sustenance for his kid at home, yet he warns him against receiving gifts from strangers or undertaking menial labour. Very wise, is it not?
Recommendations
As much as we must ask whence the problem comes and where the blame resides, we must not lose focus of what really matters: the rescue of our Pierian Spring, the sustenance of the Nile River of our existence. Let nobody reckon that only some set of persons are the culprits. We are all culprits! From the government which financially suffocates the sector, to the management which is poor at managing mint and men; from the parents who are so outrageously varsiti-centric to the students themselves who have lost their voice in the cave of greed and frivolity.
The government needs to step up its support for the university (and I do not just mean UI). Business is no business of a school. If it engages in it, it should not be for the sake of profit but for the promotion of knowledge. Needed funds should therefore be made available as no amount is too much to sacrifice for the education of a nation’s youth. The money can be made available directly, through an independent body (like the Education Trust Fund) or through a joint committee of government and university staff. Whichever method is adopted, transparency and adequate monitoring must be ensured.
It is a good thing that the government has decided to give out grants to students of the university and youth generally, but they should be reminded that our problems stretch beyond the lack of pocket money. We equally require a conducive learning environment and world-standard equipment in order to function as expected. The university motto says, recte sapere fons (to think straight is the fount of knowledge). And thinking straight, of course, is an impossible feat under agonising conditions.
Asides fixing and creating new facilities, breathing life into fallow resources is also paramount. There are magic boards and air conditioners in some lecture theatres but they serve only decorative purposes. There is a top-notch vocational centre in one hall but it has been long abandoned due to administrative indolence. There is an e-library in one faculty generously placed there by a humanitarian but they say the management is unwilling to purchase a generator to run it because even lecturers’ offices lack stable electricity. Stories abound too of rooms built by NLNG but put under lock because no one would operate them. All this should be critically looked into, and lecturers should be adequately trained on the use of modern educational facilities.
The alumni also have a very key role to play. Do not be like that bird which was nourished for months by its mother and which grew able wings under her care only to take off into yonder and never look back. Do not wait for some hyperactive Hall Chairman to seek you out. Come back and let your successors enjoy what you did, or even better. There are always things you can do, abnormalities you can fix, projects you can fund and indigent students you may well encourage. You never can tell how the good deed will rebound but it certainly will.
There are signals that the federal government in this dispensation is more concerned about the Ivory Tower than older regimes. This is good, but not enough. It starts there yes, but definitely does not end there. If the Minister of Education, like his predecessor, has his probity in doubt or his name mentioned close to one scandalous ‘gate’ or the other, then it will end there. If the comrades in the Nigeria Labour Congress and similar trade unions are more concerned about their gains than they are about the trade itself, it will end there. If the administrators on campus take advantage of their autonomy and halo of integrity to move in financial roundabouts and perform monetary voodoo, it will most certainly end there.
Even our student leaders and self-acclaimed a luta warriors have a huge role to play. More often than not, in fact too often, we hear of disconcerting cases of misappropriation among students. We have seen so-called youth leaders fight over a two million Naira ‘gift’ from Governor Abiola Ajimobi as reported by The Cable on January 16, 2015. Just two months before that, the same crop of individuals also scrambled for a sum of 500,000 Naira from the same ‘philanthropist’. It is in the same institution wherein we saw faculty executives claim unabashedly that they spent 40,000 Naira to buy kolanuts for some chiefs at Ooni’s palace. They apparently forgot the words of Abe Lincoln that you cannot fool all the people all the time.
At other times, the funds do not suffer blows from embezzlement per se; they just travel to not-too-worthwhile corners. They get spent on parties, dinners, concerts and other expensive, pointless ventures. They are used to secure a few minutes of noise pollution from ‘stars’ who dazzle their fans in the night, and are gone before daybreak. Many of them have forgotten that only a person with a head should venture into shopping for caps.
Thus, whether big or fantastically small, all hands must grip the wheel of progress and all feet must be firmly on board to pilot the sheep of the academia to the Isle of bounteous harvest. We must collectively ensure that the glorious past is re-enacted in our education system. For if our acknowledged first and acclaimed best is nowhere to be found on the world map, one wonders if any light glimmers at the tunnel’s end for ‘others’. Let us start from the peak and set a shining example. Then, an avalanche of transformation will set all else on track.
Adebajo, a member of the Union of Campus Journalist, University of Ibadan can be reached via 08177006861 and adekunlebaj@gmail.com.
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