Sir: The unfolding university degree saga in Nigeria has brought to the fore the need for our country to look inward and strengthen our academic heritage. The Federal Government needs to evaluate its students across the globe so that we can effectively understand our situation. What do people want from the Nigerian educational system to ascertain where we are getting it wrong?
It is disheartening things that passing the West African Examination Council Nigeria (WASC), Joint Admission Matriculation Board Examinations, and Post-JAMB of the various institutions does not guarantee admission into your course of choice and even the university of choice. All these gave rise to people seeking admission in neighbouring countries.
With a burgeoning youthful population, there is a need for the government to enlarge the capacity of the various institutions, but we keep tightening the admission measures as typified above. We cannot continue to allot admission quotas to institutions every session and expect parents who do not know anyone to keep their children at home for years while waiting for admission. Whereas the labour market has labelled students with such degrees as “half-baked and unemployable”. All these made parents get loans to train their children in all these mushroom institutions in the neighbouring countries.
Aside from the deep-pocket Nigerians who can afford to send their children to Ivy League universities in Europe and America, people are looking for ways in which their wards will save years in the university due to the incessant strikes that last many months. Meanwhile, the government and the academic workforce have little or nothing to lose at the expense of the students’ lives. How long will Nigerian students have a timeline for completing a bachelor’s degree programme?
Another issue we have as a country is the conversion of all tertiary levels of education to universities. No institution trains teachers again; it is now a university; no institution trains technicians again, and everyone wants to become an engineer. People without a university education cannot go beyond certain levels in Civil Service, amongst other limitations we place on our nationals. Then, people can troop into another country to get a university degree of any type. This unrealistic demand of society has pushed students out of the country.
It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but people will want to go for any form of education, and the recent increase in fees paid in Nigerian tertiary institutions is not encouraging. Truly, the government is doing everything to reduce subsidy across the board, but Nigerians cannot see the additional value to the students. People will only go for a shortcut to beat the system as well.
Government and academic leaders should find ways of redeeming the educational image of the country and overhauling the educational sector. To quote the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo: “To attain the goals of economic freedom and prosperity, Nigeria must do certain things as a matter of urgency and priority. It must provide free education at all levels and free health facilities for the masses of its citizens.” If it is not free now, we need to get it right if we will stop falling to the tricks being paid on Nigerians by other countries in our search for certificates.
• Olutayo Irantiola is a Lagos-based PR consultant, playwright and biographer.
