The immediate past Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, Martins Oloja, has advised the government to put a hold on the licensing of new universities and instead focus on establishing better tertiary institutions.

Oloja said that education quality, not quantity, can deliver sustainable development goals, including the war on “multidimensional poverty” and “civic incompetence” in the country.

The former Guardian managing director stated this while delivering the 11th distinguished lecture of the University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo City, Ondo State, with the topic “Can the Universities Trigger National Development Amid Economic Challenges?”
According to Oloja, governments can choose between funding the police force or quality public schools, which he stressed often creates a false positive correlation between education and crime.

He added that providing disadvantaged urban youth with better schools can substantially reduce juvenile and adult crime.

He said: “It is time to call on the elders of the land, notably those who enjoyed ‘the good old days’ in this same country when universities were universities, to support a motion that governments at all levels should stop all priority projects and declare a genuine emergency on education with a view to investing in them consciously and sincerely.

“Here is why our leaders should intentionally and unapologetically prioritise education quality. As our leaders put on their thinking caps about what to do with our apparent underdevelopment, they should remember first that education—quality, not quantity—can deliver sustainable development goals, including the war on multidimensional poverty and civic incompetence we notice all over the place.

“This is a time to tell them to pay attention to better rather than more universities whose products cannot contribute to national development, no thanks to poor funding.

“Our civic incompetence is the only reason our leaders become dealers, and we hail them for misusing our public funds with all their strength. Our leaders need to be aware of our discussion points now on the need to focus on better universities instead of establishing more that will not produce employable graduates in the public and private sectors. Seriously speaking, I believe that better universities can produce excellent models and modules that can address our rickety development agenda.

“We have been following a simple trend that shows there is some nexus between the quality of universities and the development of very well-known countries. I mean that we have seen that the countries with the best universities, research orientation, and funding are simply the best (and fastest-growing) economies in the world.

“We are talking about the United States, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, France, India, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Italy, etc.

Within the context of global ratings, in Africa, we have South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius, and Egypt that can now boast of better universities than Nigeria.

This is a tragedy for the ‘giant of Africa,’ which used to have one of the best four universities in the Commonwealth countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand.”

On his part, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of UNIMED, Prof. Adesegun Fatusi, who commended Oloja for the lecture, stated that efforts must be made to ensure the country’s university system lives up to its reputation.

“How can the system become better? How can the system live up to this reputation? How can we become a touchstone for transformation?” he added.