Chancellor, Gregory University Uturu (GUU) Okigwe, Abia State, Greg Ibe, spoke to KODILINYE OBIAGWU, where he lauded the National Universities Commission (NUC’s) tough accreditation process, explained why access to university education is highly limited, as well as how that universities should explore the option of online education as a way of offering admission to more applicants, among other issues.

Despite the proliferation of universities, there is still a huge number of applicants unable to gain admission into the universities. Are there options to ease this situation?
Access to university education is limited and that is why we still see a lot of applicants still battling for admissions. Availability of spaces is predicated on quality and standards. For example, if the availability of classrooms and lecturers are assured and the ratio guarantees an admission and accommodation for 400 or 1,000 students, can any university admit 10,000 students? If any university admits more than it is guaranteed to admit, it means that the National Universities Commission (NUC) will fight it because the carrying capacity of universities is regulated. There are a few indices to measure what gives you the opportunity, or why you should admit more. With universities everywhere, each can admit based on the strength of its infrastructure, available personnel and other factors that support learning. I am aware that the NUC is fighting to end the complaints of undergraduates sitting on the floor or standing by the windows to receive lectures.

In the meantime, the only thing that can help to increase access to learning is online platform, which the Gregory University, Uturu (GUU) is pioneering. We introduced into the country an online platform known as Blackboard, which is used by 80 per cent of top universities in the world. As a matter of fact, the NUC is considering allowing the nation’s universities to adopt an online platform, which will offer students the comfort of staying at home to study.

How would you measure the success of this platform in the light of poor Internet facilities in the country?
The issue is not in the difficulties that will be encountered, but in the desired outcome, which is to offer access to university education to many who hitherto didn’t have that option. In due course, you would have educated more than if the option wasn’t there. The difficulties will be sorted out once the ability of those universities selected to support the online platform is ascertained.

What do you make of claims that the NUC is not doing enough to check standards, especially in the accreditation of courses and infrastructure in some private universities?
The accreditation process of NUC is clear and the commission has its hands full. However, people cut corners a lot, and this is why anyone could blame NUC in the first place for anything about standards. You can’t blame a regulatory agency that gives you due service. How should NUC police the universities? Why should a university offer poor quality education to people and not do what is right? Maybe, the government should set up an Education and Other Related Offences Commission for the trial of universities falling on standards. An approach should be made to cleanse the universities and entrench a new attitude in leadership.

Private universities are providing services that are for public good, same with state universities. So, what government can do in order to improve quality is to introduce a better competitive attitude in the education sector, provide revolving financial aid for Nigerian youths who want to go to tertiary institutions.

People circumvent everything put in place to serve as a guideline and the NUC adequately acts to ensure compliance. The NUC has noted for example, how some state and federal universities borrow equipment ahead of inspection visits in order to convince NUC to accredit some courses that they don’t have the infrastructure to support. The NUC has actually gone tougher on issues like these. Today, NUC requires every university to engrave its name on every equipment it is showing during inspection. And the commission has said that it will sanction any university that lends equipment. I am not speaking for NUC, but because of what GUU passed through during NUC inspection, I am certain that they are not there to cut corners.

In which institutions is the issue of poor standards more noticeable?
It cuts across first generation and private universities. Some private universities flout NUC’s order and admit whoever they like. But fortunately, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is coming very hard on them by making sure that they don’t admit those people. Even NUC waits for them when they go for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme because if you don’t have a confirmed, formal admission letter from JAMB, then you are a nobody. JAMB has a control mechanism that ensures that if you don’t have proper admission, you cannot go for the youth service.

What do you think is the biggest problem universities are facing today?
It is not one problem, but an aggregate of issues. However, there is the need to raise and maintain standards as most universities cut corners to remain in business. Investments have to be made in information technology to offset the non-availability of lecturers. The NUC has said that if you don’t have enough masters’ degree and doctorate degree holders, you are not supposed to be in the university environment, but most schools are ready to do anything to make sure that they keep going. The problem is that once you engage those highly qualified people, your overhead will be high. At this point a university will do whatever needs to be done to hang in there.

How are the universities affected by the economic downturn?
The situation is like what obtains with the micro finance banks. The Federal Government said that if you are licensed as a micro finance bank, the Federal Government will give you some money, and states with councils will also give you. No micro finance bank in the country has received a dime. They borrow money from commercial banks, and are charged 28 per cent or 30 per cent and they use it to support rural development probably at 35 per cent in order to survive. So, there is no incentive. The same thing applies to the universities.  What happens when universities have to spend so much money in running their operations, and then the money they are meant to make is through school fees? Assuming you are getting subventions, grants and aids in order to improve on quality and parents are getting enough work and are not being owed salaries, and the businesses are flourishing, then they will pay.

In order to standardise education, there must be even competition. This is why government should introduce financial aid to be accessed by any Nigerian students as a facility that enables them access university education. We are producing the future generation and Nigeria should wake up to conventional realities.

Are the first generation universities serving as models for the private universities?
First generation universities were supposed to be our beacons, but values have dropped. So, if they have to reawaken them, more stringent things need to be in place. It is the failure inherent in them and the environment that made private universities to come to the rescue.

Do you think private universities are able to attract qualified personnel to boost competition with government universities?
When you apply for license, the first thing NUC does is to assess you. They give you some courses regarded as intro courses, like arts and humanities, which have no major demand beyond personnel and a few laboratories. They nurse and watch you grow. The easiest part of running a university is what you have to accept first. That is what people want to do. At that time, you are not in competition, because you might charge N400, 000 or N1 million when a federal university is charging N30, 000. So, people are ready to pick the certificate as the only acceptable thing and not the quality or the level of education the person has. That is why you interview graduates and they can’t write their names.

Is there any connection between the fees a university charges and the quality of educational it offers?
Let me take the liberty of using the GUU as example. We do 16 weeks per session. It is difficult to find a federal or state university that does that because strikes, internal or national, and students’ unrest have bastardised the system. They don’t complete all that are meant to be taught in the course outlines. So, the older universities need to see the reason to help government by seeking alternative ways to settle their grievances, but not to stop the process of educating the younger ones.

What are the major challenges, private universities face?
Funding is a big issue, so the government should consider giving them grants because they are training people for public good. The grant comes in the form of financial support to universities that are doing well. Any university that is doing well, should be given some grants to sustain the good work it is doing. It is not giving them public money because these are private institutions, but they should be encouraged because they are producing well-rounded people to boost the nation’s workforce.

Our education sector has been improved by the coming of private universities, but what the government is supposed to do in terms of infrastructural support is where the problem lies. There is a lack of electricity to support private and small-scale enterprises just as some universities rely on power plants for generation of electricity. There are no roads to support development, there is a lack of potable water and people rely on boreholes. So, once you want to set up any structure, you come with your infrastructure and become a council of your own. This discourages people from investing and that is why the cluster of investments is drifting to where you can find appreciable support from government.

How do you think universities can aid the government in national development?
The Federal Government should do more on skills gap. For example, Nigeria has too many lawyers who have no place in the economy. The thing to do is to force universities to reduce the intake into law faculties. Commonly, people escape to courses where mathematics is not studied and these courses are saturated and yet it is science and technology that will lead to industrial development. We are nowhere near there. So, if the government spends more time addressing the issue of skills gap, it will solve the problems. We should start diverting attention of children to what the government sees as the future of the country. By the time we know the number of engineers we want to produce, it will guide who we send to school.
Now that we are talking of the agricultural sector as the alternative to oil, the government has to devise means of dragging people into agriculture and offer them incentives to let people study the sciences. The Federal Government can also carry out a propaganda as a means of directing people’s attention to some sectors where it aims to improve in future.

Is there a correlation between strengthening of standards and coming tops in rankings by foreign organisations?
When a local university is ranked, you wonder if that university has all it takes within the circumstances to deliver. For example, if the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) is ranked as it were among the first three universities in Africa, the question might arise if UNN can deliver online on Igbo Studies to anyone, anywhere in the world? People will also ask, is UNN hooked on Blackboard, the online platform available to top universities in the world?

The ranking is not among the league of equals, rather it is among people who do not have the technological facilities to aid educational growth. They know to what extent premier universities are doing well, and they know that the equipment there might be obsolete, but they are managing.  However, you can’t be ranked better if you are still found wanting in major areas when NUC conducts equipment availability tests in your school.