The State Of Higher Education In Nigeria
By
Roy
Chikwem
roysailor@hotmail.com
The recent findings on the state of higher education in
Nigeria as conducted by the World Bank and UNESCO had confirmed the
degradation of the Nigerian educational system. Nigeria was a country that
produced world-class university graduates that could compete with their
counterparts around the world and hard work was their watchword. Today, we
only produce the worst set of uneducated tertiary graduates that cannot
structure a simple sentence.
Prior to the Nigerian oil industry evolution in the late 1960s, the
Nigerian economy was wholly-funded by revenue generated from cash crops
such as groundnut, cocoa and palm oil, all produced from the northern,
western and eastern part of Nigeria respectively. Then, the fruits of hard
work were imbedded in the heart and mind of every student because they saw
how hardworking their parents were on the farms and moral education was
part of family responsibilities. Today, students are unable to compete in
a healthy academic atmosphere due to the destructive role of the family,
government, and the university community.
Regrettably, most parents lack all ingredients to be called fathers and
mothers because the family structure has been destroyed. These so-called
parents hardly oversee the growth and development of their children,
rather they chase after the fruits of the world. Family values and respect
are now things of the past. These parents prefer to buy admission letters
for their children rather than encouraging them to properly prepare for
their examinations. And for the parents who refuse to engage in these
illegal and immoral practices, they are victimized and their children end
up staying at home for years until their parents or the students learn how
to beat or cheat the system. Most of these parents always use a famous
proverb to justify their unwarranted actions, which goes as follows: "If
you can’t beat them, then join them". But these parents fail to realize
that they are destroying the future of their children and unborn children
without consideration of the long-term consequences and implications.
Recently, domestic and foreign corporations based in Nigeria like Shell,
Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, Citibank, Accenture, Nestle, Cadbury, Guinness are
all on a massive recruitment drive to hire Nigerian graduates from foreign
institutions based in Europe, Asia, America, South Africa, and including
other West African countries like Ghana, Libya. These corporations lack
trust and confidence in the Nigerian educational system. However, we
discovered corporations were willing to offer high paying salaries ranging
from $30,000 to $150,000 annually, which include the full paid vacation
aboard, relocation expenses, five-star accommodation, housing allowance,
resettlement allowance, medical benefits, fuel allowance, vehicle
maintenance allowance, security allowance, stock options, housing loan,
children tuition allowance and annual bonus. But the Nigerian trained
graduates are offered practically nothing compared to their foreign
trained counterparts. These Nigerian trained graduates are offered
salaries between $2,000 and $5,000 annually without any benefits.
These
corporations justified their actions based on the fact that, they spend
huge millions of Naira in retraining Nigerian graduates to perform their
jobs, which were supposed to be learnt at their respective institution of
higher learning. However, they claim that foreign trained graduates are
well-trained and equipped to carry out their respective duties. For
example, Shell Nigeria has an intensive one-year program for Nigerian
trained graduates to improve the technical knowledge of graduates before
they may be “considered” for employment into Shell Nigeria. The program is
called "Shell Intensive Training Program (SITP)" and it is automatically
waived for all foreign trained graduates. In addition, the Nigerian
government and its agencies prefer to award contracts to foreign companies
rather than Nigerian companies.
The Nigerian government has also played a destructive role in destroying
the educational system in Nigeria. Students now go to school on empty
stomach coupled with lack of clean water and bad sanitary condition. There
are no textbooks to be found in the libraries and lack of improved
teaching technological equipments. Students are forced to "learn" in
dilapidated buildings. However, most Nigerian students are naturally
gifted and talented, and they still excel beyond our imagination with all
the odds against them.
In the past, Institution like Yaba College of Technology, University of
Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Lagos, Ahmadu Bello
University and University of Nsukka were all real centers of academic
excellence. But the Federal Government of Nigeria went ahead to create and
established a governmental agency called Joint Admission and Matriculation
Board (JAMB) to regulate admission standards into Nigerian institutions of
higher learning. This unprecedented, unwarranted and mismanaged agency
then introduced and encouraged schemes like catchments areas, cut off
marks, federal character, state of origin (instead of state of birth)
without testing its limitations and effects on the educational system.
Unfortunately, prospective students into the universities and polytechnics
simply have to bribe their way into these institutions. These are usually
done with the aid of JAMB officials under the falsehood of Vice
Chancellors (VC), Deans, Head of Department (HOD) lists, and other
all-outrageous admission lists. Hence, these students are illegally
admitted into the institution and they find it difficult to maintain their
academic grades. Then, these students resort to cultism, prostitution and
armed robbery as a means of remaining on campus. Most regrettably, hard
work and academic excellence are no longer the yardstick by which academic
success are been measured in Nigeria.
The "no
hard work syndrome" has eaten so deeply into the educational system in
Nigeria, which an ex-speaker in Nigerian House of Representatives had to
illegally acquire a fraudulent degree, purportedly awarded by the
University of Toronto, Canada. Consequently, the said politician had to
step down from his position. But using a powerful network, the same
ex-speaker has since been on the payroll of a Nigerian governmental
agency. What a shame?
Some Vice Chancellors, governors and top government officials have secured
loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) without utilizing or
implementing those funds into any educational projects. Rather, these
loans are converted to personal loans for purchasing big houses aboard,
marrying beautiful wives, driving luxury cars and acquiring outrageous
chieftaincy titles. Today, Nigeria has a national debt of $35 Billion and
we are nowhere close in paying off the debt.
There are also some students who are far richer than their lecturers and
parents; hence, they seek admission into tertiary institutions, just to
have bachelors and higher degrees to their names. These students dislike
the ideology of hard work and merited academic certificate; rather they
prefer to take the easiest means. Prostitution houses or rings are now
prevalence in institutions like UNILAG, UNIBEN, and among other first,
second, third generation, private and state universities. The prostitution
activities on campus are widely patronized by lecturers and by highly
connected individuals in the society.
Unfortunately, well-connected students use their illegally acquired wealth
to influence the outcome of their examinations and they use cultism to
terrorize those who fail to bend to their rules. Most of these students
are already murderers, rapists and armed robbers before they graduate. In
fact, many of these so-called connected students align themselves with
government officials and they display their wealth on campus openly. The
result of this phenomenon is that graduating students pass through school
without learning anything and they are faced with their limitations when
they cannot perform at their place of employment or they cannot compete at
the job market.
However, most lecturers should share the blame for the state of the
Nigerian educational system. Some lecturers refuse to pass students until
they buy their prepared lecture note "handouts" or sex is offered by their
female students against their will. This situation is so bad that it is a
living nightmare for female students including single and married students
because these lecturers would make sure they fail these students until sex
is exchanged for passing grades. And, some lecturers are converting to
part-time politicians and others have decided to join the corporate world,
whereby polluting the noble profession of teaching.
There is a
massive migration of extraordinary professors into foreign institutions
because there are no incentives to advance their profession in Nigeria and
the Nigerian government chooses to pay them whatever they feel. These
professors are highly-under paid and lack all adequate infrastructures to
carry out their duties effectively and efficiently in Nigeria. Some
institutions of higher learning in Nigeria are prevalent in "awarding" or
better still selling honorary degrees to the highest bidder. The good
healthy relationship between lecturers and students are no longer present,
instead these lecturers take advantage of these students for their own
personal gains.
Hence, we can no longer continue to pass blames among each other without
dealing with the issues at stake. The Nigerian educational system has a
problem and it needs a solution. It is also time to dismantle or
reorganize the role of the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) and
the Nigerian tertiary administration need to redesign the curriculum to
focus more on self-employment rather than working for established
corporations. The Nigerian government needs to put into place a program
that would seek to encourage the return of professors and professionals
who are presently in the Diaspora.
Finally,
the Federal Government of Nigeria need to curb the violence of cultism in
the Nigerian tertiary institutions by incorporating the recommendations of
Ben Oguntuase (former Capone, National Association of Seadogs - Pyrates
Confraternity) issued during the Anti-Cult Week Symposium at the
University of Lagos on November 3, 1999. He proposed that the leadership
of all the fraternities (cult groups) in Nigeria should get together with
representatives of the university community and the Ministry of Education
should constitute a National Inter-fraternity Council (NIFC). NIFC should
be charged with the following responsibilities:
-
Identify all fraternities in Nigerian tertiary institutions and prepare
a comprehensive register of representatives of all fraternities
-
Establish NIFC at the campus, state, national level to register, approve
and monitor fraternal activities.
-
Establish guidelines for the existence and operation of fraternities on
campus.
-
Develop appropriate framework for minimizing and dealing with
inter-fraternity conflicts as well as formulate programs that will
enhance inter-fraternity harmony through collaborative activities aimed
at providing service to the communities, and competitive activities as
in sports and academics.
-
Develop framework to monitor and report on the composite academic
performance of each fraternity and recommend appropriate rewards for
academic excellence.
-
Develop programs to disarm all fraternities and surrender their weapons
to NIFC or the appropriate authorities.
However, all these recommendations are useless and unachievable until the
Nigerian government becomes more accountable, corrupt-free, and answerable
to the people. Do not be deceived by the so-called Nigerian leaders who
claim to be sympathetic to the need of the Nigerian educational system
because most of them have their children schooling in foreign institutions
and they donate heavily in dollars to all these foreign institutions,
without giving a penny to their community. We sincerely hope and pray
that, it would not be too late to salvage the Nigerian educational system.
Roy Chikwem is a Delaware based member of
Amnesty International, USA and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
He is a socio-political activist and the author of Fundamentals of
Salesmanship.
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