It is an accepted norm that knowledge is a sine qua non to national development since knowledge that underpins human capacity resource generation, which is primal to the functions, and perhaps the major raison d’être for the establishment of Nigerian university higher education institutions (HEIs).
Knowledge is power is a popular axiom, and great nations over the ages have always claimed superiority over their neighbours based on superior knowledge and the efficient ability to utilise the same to their advantage. Taxila University in 600 BC, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard,d et al., as well as the University College, Ibadan in 194,8, were set up to collect and collate knowledge for power.
Knowledge for power
Of recent, there has been a move to emphasise massification (at higher educational level, otherwise called access–104 (+6) universities in Nigeria at presenttoto cope with the pressure on enrolment in Nigeria; however, the instrument for quantitative massification lies in the quality of higher education institutions.
Universities are established the generate knowledge, which is based on research, to support economic growth and competitiveness. Whereas there is a need to build a diverse tertiary education system-universities, colleges of technologies and education, open universities, and so on, to cope with the demand side.
However, to build on skills and expertise that society wants, there must be an overall system focus that enables a seamless transition from the colleges of technologies/polytechnics and education to universities and vice versa for all stakeholders.
Knowledge economy
A look at the plethora of new terms prefixed by “e “indicates the necessary move to be IT or “e “compliant (e-mail, e-learning, e-payment, e-government, et al.) is a clear signal as to what the future portends.
Knowledge societies, driven by mass quality assured education, are ruling our world under several guises, associations and nomenclature(s) viz: G7, G8, G8+5, G20, BR1C, World Economic Forum, and so on. Nigeria’s global ranking on the Knowledge Index is 66th position out of 75 countries and classified in the group of lagging followers.
We are ranked 95th out of 129 on global competitiveness, just ahead of the poorest of the poor countries, including the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Gambia, Tanzania, Mali, Benin, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. We therefore need to synergise our individual capacities with the sole purpose of achieving international prominence.
Nigerian University System-Backwards Glance
These have been identified as the past, the transition period, the period before 1999 and the present. These periods could also be traced to the emergence and classification of universities in the country, to the first, second and third generation universities respectively.
Each period has its peculiar characteristics, with the emerging management styles tailored towards the growth and development of the university. The article will attempt to highlight the major characteristics as they affect the universities/higher educational institutions, which are the focus of this discourse.
The Past
This refers to the period between 1948/1972 to the mid70s, when it was said that money was not the problem but how to spend it. The beneficiaries of the era were the premier university, Ibadan, and those referred to as the first generation universities, including ABU, Lagos, Ife, and Usukka. There were no budgetary limitations.
The universities had their special budgetary allocation determined not by their needs but by their wants. There were no limits as to the amount to be spent, infrastructures were in abundance, and there was no restriction on employment policies.
Research funds were available. It was usual to have unspent funds returned to the coffers of the university. It was a period of plenty and abundance. Student enrolment in this period was within manageable limits.
The Transition Period
The dawn of reality came in the wake of dwindling national resources and the attendant limited fund allocation to the universities. The universities got the initial signs that it was not business as usual. Budgetary estimates were slashed after debates, which was not a feature of the past.
In fact, where budgets were approved, allocation and release of funds became problematic. This was a new dimension. These marked the period of emergence of the second and third generation universities (Benin, Ilorin, PortHarcourt, Calabar, Jos, and so on).)
Worth mentioning in this period was the expansion of the number of universities with the creation of states. An emerging characteristic was the multiplication of universities as soon as states were created. Where a state was created from an existing one, the new state automatically established its own university.
In this period, we also established Universities of Agriculture and Technology in Abeokuta, Akure, Bauchi, Umudika, Minna and so on. They all had obvious financial implications on existing universities that have to share the budget in the same envelope.
The demand pull was very high, and while the supply was dwindling, with time, the stage was thus set for survival of the fittest in terms of the competition for the limited resources from the government, both at the centre and the state levels. This ushered in a new era, which is the present state, where the competition for limited funds became a trend.
The Period Before 1999
This is the survival of the fittest period. It is the stage where everything in the armoury of negotiation of funds is brought to play.
It is to the credit of the National Universities Commission (NUC), which had, over successive years, set the criteria for the justifiable allocation of funds through various formulas and ratios on components of library, research, and so on. These major characteristics of inadequate funding are as follows:
- Funds allocated are grossly inadequate to meet the essential needs of the university.
- Funds are released monthly, as against the annual or quarterly allocation that used to be the practice.
- Words like “release cash backing, sighting” are now terms to be learnt in funds allocation and release (that the government, approving a cheque is not enough until other conditions like cash backing, release, and so on, are fulfilled). These are changing times.
Salaries and allowances gulp as much as 95 per cent of the recurrent allocation to the universities. Capital allocations are not released when due. It is against this background that the facilities and infrastructures are begging for attention.
Facilities are at the dilapidated stage. Infrastructures are begging for rehabilitation; some of the buildings are at the stage of imminent collapse, equipment is obsolete or non-existent, and in most cases, leading to a dearth of research.
The disrepair in the road network is better imagined. All these underscore the menace of under-funding in our universities at this period.
The Present
The present period from the commencement of the civilian administration shows a quantum jump in the funding paradigm, with the insistence of the university unions and the support of President Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR.
The abandoned projects in the federal universities were rehabilitated; teaching and research equipment funding was made the responsibility of heads of departments and funded directly by NUC.
Capital projects funding was available both directly and through the ETF, and salaries and other conditions of service for universities were increased.
Of course, these were after a long and painful struggle by the unions that led to protracted closures and rubbed off the quality and acceptance of graduates in the employment market and overseas graduate schools.
The Challenges and Risk Factors in Universities
The education sector is in a particularly difficult situation in Nigeria, where poverty and its consequences (unemployment, hunger, illiteracy, uncontrolled population growth, deteriorating environment, and pandemics) confound the majority of the population daily, especially the rural and urban poor. It is a systemic malady; corrections must be made from the primary through the secondary to the tertiary levels.
This situation can only be remedied by universities that are the primary producers of the manpower required. However, the gory tale of graduate unemployment is not encouraging society to have the needed confidence in universities.
The usual excuse of governments for the poor attention and sow priority accorded to education has been to express fiscal inability to satisfy the demands of the sector vis-à-vis other competing interests such as health, infrastructure (including power, roads, water, security, and so on) however, this is not tenable since education underpins the progress within those secondary sectors. Hence, one of the challenges is funding.
Nigeria, with a population of 146.3 million, has an annual growth rate of 2.1 per cent (a reduction of 1 per cent over the last 4 years or so). A good target for the population growth rate should not exceed 1 per cent per annum.
Unbridled population growth
The G7 countries that we target in 2020 have a zero per cent growth rate or less, and in fact have to supplement their workforce by encouraging migration from less-developed countries (a new wave of brain drain).
The current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is $180.3 billion with a GDP per capita of $1,233; the growth rate is put at about 6 per cent, even though the financial meltdown has further depressed this growth to about 3.5 per cent.
However, to achieve the objectives of Vision20:2, economy’smy’sy GDP must grow at 12:5 per cent annually. (A clear challenge here is low productivity and a total dependence on imports.)
Low productivity and a total dependence on imports
Individually, Nigerians are respected all over the world in terms of intellectual ability and resourcefulness – what apparently is lacking is a positive (YES! WE CAN) attitude and the willingness to work together as a family and nation (not as nationalities?) to achieve specific well-defined roles.
Education is critical to the development of nations; it is an antidote to poverty and a “leveller” in the emerging knowledge society. Nigeria’s prosperity depends solely on a well-educated citizenry.
The Improvement of Science, engineering and technology education
The Vision 2010 document provides a clear direction for the education sector through the improvement of science, engineering and technology education training.
It sought specifically to make education at primary and secondary levels compulsory and free by 2003 and 209, respectively; to allocate not less than 26 per cent of the national (Federal, State and Local Governments) budget to education; to change supplementary fees in universities to partially recover costs, and so on.
The import of the above treatise is to understand the essential gap that universities must seek to fill in terms of synergising the outputs of these institutions to cover dynamically, quality and needs-based education necessary for national development.
Conclusion
The risks that universities have to bear include the disillusionment and lackadaisical attitude of society to the outcomes from universities, including graduates and research results/innovations/patents. Thus, we see proprietors setting up universities for profit motive, government owning universities to score political points. Read further on this page.
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Editors
