BY NGOZI OBOH
August 6, 2011 09:26PM
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Over one million candidates scored 180 and above in the last Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and are qualified to gain admission, but Julius Okojie, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), said only about 400,000 candidates will be admitted into the university system. He said the facilities on ground cannot accommodate all. He said his new administration will focus on improving access to education and is aiming at increasing the number of students that will be admitted into universities to 800,000 within the next five years. Excerpts:

Stabilising the university system

For us at the National Universities Commission, we have made progress through the reforms we have had. We have more divisions and departments that address issues we are having in the universities. For the first time, we are addressing the issues of entrepreneurship, leadership and counselling and presently, we have talked about improvement in programmes. We are talking about gerontology, mechatronics; new programmes we think that will really push the system forward to address the issues that are our national needs.

To a large extent, we have improved the quality of programming because there are more programmes now with full accreditation.

More than ever before, we have effective monitoring of the university system. Through our prompting, government now has adopted a platform for appointment of principal officers in universities. We have a better deal in terms of the remuneration of teachers today than ever before and because of the in-depth analysis of what the problems were, we have a backlog of history and documents that we can always fall back to address the issues that are germane in the system. More importantly, we have a very strong hold on the university system, whether it is under-graduate or post-graduate. Benchmark minimum academic standard has been provided. Even for post-graduate, we didn’t have benchmark before; we now have started accreditation for MBA.

Now we have expanded access through the recommendation for the approval of private universities. During this period under review, we have almost 30 or 40 new universities. I must say that we now have relative level of stability because we are now addressing the issue of remuneration. The rapport between the commission and the universities out there is not interaction in terms of monitoring. What you see is not all that is going on because we have a lot to do within the system here than just inviting universities and getting their issues resolved.

Increase in funding

There is also more funding through the Education Trust Fund (ETF). Recently, the ETF launched the guidelines for accessing the N3 billion research grant. There is the STEP-B 180 million dollars. So all these are coming within the system. There is also more money in terms of staff development and capacity building. So we have become more effective than ever before. I think that in respect to quality of teachers, we have greater teacher quality today because ETF has in the past three provided a lot of fund for teacher development and retention.

Recently, we created new department to address the issues that are very crucial in the system.

Improving access to education

Now, our target is to ensure that the university system have more programmes that are relevant to national need and that are relevant to addressing global issues. Our target is to ensure that we tag on to the ministry’s objective and the turnaround strategies of making education a priority. Of course we should be talking about more students entering the system. Within the next five years, we should be talking about hitting, 800,000 students in the university system through the normal and natural means. If we improve the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and the National Open University, we can achieve this. For us to improve access, open and distance learning have become a very critical aspect of our responsibility. Very soon we are going to have interaction with the British Council on ODL. If you look at the ODL in India, it is able to address the issue of access for over 1.8 million. Here we have 1.5 million applicants, but we are not able to take 400,000 students. That is an issue. We are not talking about failure in JAMB. The policy meeting says whoever scores 180 and above can enter the university system. About one million scored 180 and above, but there is no space for them. There are people who are 27 years old still struggling to enter the university; they can go do the ODL, work and go to school. We have provided the guideline for ensuring these things are in place.

Creating minimum academic standards

In the next 100 days, we plan that the curriculum that have been under review will be completed and all programmes that do not have benchmark minimum academic standard will have, because we have to drive that system effectively. Then we must be able to digitalise all the physical masterplan of the university system, so that we can sit down here and monitor what they do.

Then some of the nine new universities are likely to take off in the next 100 days and my belief is that a quarter or more of them would have taken off effectively. We also think that we would have gone through the process of routine responsibility of honouring our distinguished professors. We have a programme we call distinguished professors award. It will take place.

We are going to key into the full programmes of the ministry of education. But more important is that we would set a platform on which we are going to launch the success of education story in the next five years. In the next 100 days we would know what direction we are going and what it takes to achieve it. We will identify the turnaround strategy because from the education roadmap, we are going to pull out what is responsible for the progress we are going to make.

We will have something on the menu. The next 100 days will determine what the next five years will look like.

Staff and student audit

We are also sending out signals that any university that is 15 years and above if it has not made arrangements to move to the permanent site will stand the risk of closing shop because enabling environment for learning and physical facilities are very important. You cannot lock yourself in a two hectare shop and think you will make progress. This is what we are going to do to ensure effective monitoring. We do not keep adequate data. In the next 100 days we want to start staff and students audit. We do not know how many students that are genuinely in the system. Lecturers teach in two or three places and we now have information that some people keep two permanent jobs which is scandalous in the system. We should be able to have some good enough data to take off. If we do that, we will know who is teaching where and where there is deficiency. We cannot be sure we are meeting the demands. Government has to be ready and give it the wings we require by ensuring enough funds for staff development. China and India did it. You cannot pay lip service to staff development.

Instituitional accreditation

We have advertised for accreditors and are harvesting all their CVs. There is a budget for it, which has gone through a process. In the next one or two months, we would have completed the exercise. That is going to happen and there is no doubt about that. The board has approved that we go ahead.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5738034-146/story.csp

Is this a good idea? Is the 400k/year entering university too low? Sounds like a lot to me, more than enough. Thing is, are there jobs even for the 400k who graduate?

^^^ So you think slashing the number to say 200,000 with guaranteed jobs would be a better option?

What does "guaranteed jobs" mean? What is a "guaranteed" job?

I just don't see why you'll spend more money on increasing the # of university graduates when even the ones you are producing cannot find jobs in the career they were trained for at university.

What is the point of subsidizing the education of another engineer if he will work as a cab driver after he graduates? Seems like a waste, no?

(Btw, I am implicitly assuming that there will some sort of enormous increase in the existing subsidies of university education going on if they plan to go from 400k to 800k by 2016.)

^^^ Your reasoning seems to be surprisingly narrow here. Education is not an end in itself but a raw material you can choose to use whichever way you like. If an engineer chooses to use his for year education as a cab driver, then that's his choice after all Aganga read Theology and ended up at the helm of a leading fin institution. For all the bashing our local system receives, there are countless success stories so why should anyone be denied an opportunity simply because there are no jobs ready made jobs for graduates? Are jobs supposed to be the essence of education? If you deny half a million people any sort of tertiary education do you make the society worse or better off?

Who will pay for the education of this engineer who will end up as a cab driver?

If he wants to do it himself, or it is his family and friends paying for it, more power to him.

But if you want to make society in general or the taxpayer to pay for it, I think that taxpayer is entitled to ask some hard questions, yes?

I don't see how it is a good use of limited resources to spend money training an engineer who will end up a cab driver.

I know some folks who go to college here in the US, spend 4 years in university and end up with jobs that only require a HS education to do. And even the US, as wealthy a country as it is, it makes such people bear the costs of such decisions themselves (imagine borrowing $100k to go to college to then get a job that pay $20k or $30k/year. Might sound insane, but people do stupid things like this all the time. . . essentially selling themselves into slavery by borrowing money for a useless education that won't improve their lot in life.)

If even a rich country like the US makes people bear the costs of their educational decisions, how much more a poor country like Nigeria?

When i go to webometrics and see how nigerian schools are faring,i shake my head.Imagine being nowhere near 10,000 in ranking

@ekt_bear
Just like you pointed out, borrowing to fund ones education does not guarantee success in life and neither would there be a guarantee that all beneficiaries of subsidized education will be successful.  The decision of who should be liable for failures IMO is already equally shared between a subsidizing govt and the individual who's already living less than optimally, but in any case the decision is that of policy makers and there's absolutely nothing wrong with subsidizing education afterall the whole idea is to give her citizens a shot at making it in life. (BTW, last i checked some state Uni's in 9ja were collecting over a 100k for tuition so you can put 'subsidy' here in context)
So my point is increasing the carrying capacity of our universities is alltogether good move that should be applauded. Disagree?

1. What is your basis for saying that the 100k they charge doesn't represent a subsidy? Have you looked through their books and verified that the state government isn't sending money the school's way? Perhaps the true cost w/o any state gov't assistance would be N150k.
2. I agree with the idea of "equal shot at life" up to high school level. Past that, should be pure merit/competiton. Imo, let the guys above the 90th or 95th percentile of JAMB test takers get heavy assistance, those at the 85th percentile get some assistance.  I might even be convinced to set the threshold as low as 70 or 80.
But to set the threshold at 32.54, as this guy says with his comment that everyone who got above 180 should go to college (see this chart here for where I got this # from: http://i53.tinypic.com/28br6mo.jpg)? That to me is nonsense. If you cannot even achieve the 50th percentile on JAMB, what business do you have going to college? Let alone asking for assistance to go!

Top test takers should go to university. But for the rest, there is nothing wrong with a good technical education that'll prepare them for a career. Being a plumber, electrician, other such careers still can pay very well.

The German model is the one we should adopt, not this useless American model of encouraging everyone to go to university by force

This academic system is not working!!!!!!!!!!! It's not about having 150million students, it's about producing quality graduates!!!!. Who are these jigga boos!!!! Nigeria is soo backwards geeeeezzz, I wish ramadan will finish so Boko Haram can continue bombing Nothing is ever done right!!

Shiiiiiiiiit!! Last year, I called for bloody revolution, no one listened. Instead they thought I was high again and the dro made me violent! I'm the most peaceful person I know, Evil is what you do with it!! I wish Boko Haram will just do the right thing and start killing top politicians!!

ekt_bear:

Top test takers should go to university. But for the rest, there is nothing wrong with a good technical education that'll prepare them for a career. Being a plumber, electrician, other such careers still can pay very well.

The German model is the one we should adopt, not this useless American model of encouraging everyone to go to university by force

Good points but these are idyllic ideas that does not take into cognizance the reality on ground. Nigeria abandoned technical education years ago and HND holders are discriminated against by employers which further fuelled the rush for University education. I think the real issue here is what should be done to enhance the existing system since any wholesale change isnt coming any soon. We all have lofty ideas of how the system should be.

^-- Hehe. Well, his claim of 800k students entering universities by 2016 is also an "idyllic" idea that fails to "take into cognizance the reality on the ground."

I doubt that it will happen

ekt_bear:

^-- Hehe. Well, his claim of 800k students entering universities by 2016 is also an "idyllic" idea that fails to "take into cognizance the reality on the ground."

I doubt that it will happen

Ekt_bear, you have to understand that Nigerians and the government doesn't care about education quality, they care more about quantity. That is why they set the tuition fees and admission standards so low that everyone wants to go college including those who have no business being there. Meanwhile the facilities on ground cannot meet such artificial demand.

A case where federal universities charge N5000($30) per annum for college tuition so as to "give everyone a shot" and set examination cut off points at 180 (out of 400) tells you the mindset of the education authorities. They now lament when our universities do not even rank in the first ten thousand universities in the world and is ranked so low in Africa.

We hear comparison with Ghanaian universities but they'll fail to mention that going to college in Ghana will cost you at least 2 million Naira per annum and admission standards are very high. Something Nigerians will never be willing to tolerate in their own country. Why won't Ghana be better? Countries like the UK are charging at least 9 thousand pounds per annum. While college entry standards are lower in the US, the fees acts as a weeding out mechanism. Scholarships and grants takes care of the smart candidates.

As far as Nigerians are concerned, any university in Nigeria that tries to limit uni access and demand ( through high entry standards and tuition fees) is rubbish. That is why they pillory private unis that charge more realistic fees and riot when public unis try to charge appropriately so as to maitain quality. They then cry out about falling standards conveniently forgetting that world class quality costs world class money. You will always get what you pay for. Subsidized access to uni education should be for the best and brightest, not for everyone in a poor country like Nigeria

ekt_bear:

I know some folks who go to college here in the US, spend 4 years in university and end up with jobs that only require a HS education to do.

^
Did they end up in these jobs that require a HS education by choice or are they constrained to do these jobs because of a lack of jobs due to the depressed economy? I very much doubt if their intention while going to college was to end up doing such jobs.

800,000k is still actually a small number given the size of Nigeria's population.

@kalokalo: I agree entirely.

@aletheia: Unemployment is guess is a bit high in this country relative to the standard of the 90s and 2000s. But even in the boom times of the late 90s (http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp), you'd still have this phenomenon.

Job prospects for your typical below-average philosophy, sociology, english, etc grad are pretty dismal. . . some sort of administrative assistant sort of gig that really doesn't use any skills beyond that a quality HS grad possesses.

I agree that 800k is small relative to Nigeria's population, but the economy doesn't really support even the current amount of people entering university, does it? Let alone 800k/year.

ekt_bear:

I agree that 800k is small relative to Nigeria's population, but the economy doesn't really support even the current amount of people entering university, does it? Let alone 800k/year.

Agreed the economy doesn't support that now. . .the point is that this is a target for the future 2016, at which point it is hoped that the private-sector driven economic reforms would have kicked in resulting in economic growth that translates into jobs. Having a highly educated (relatively) population is not a bad idea. I believe there is a correlation between levels of educational attainment and a country's standard of living. Consider for example these figures:

1 - Canada - 44.0
2 - United States - 38.4
3 - Japan - 37.4
4 - Sweden - 33.4
5 - Finland - 33.3
6 - Denmark - 31.9
7 - Australia - 31.3
8 - Norway - 31.0
9 - New Zealand - 30.9
10 - South Korea - 29.5

Numbers indicate the Percentage of Population aged 25-64 that have attained a tertiary level of education (OECD Countries).

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007.

Now compare that with the first ten countries on the Human Development Index.

Hehe

Correlation is not causation, as you probably already very well know 

If I had to guess, the direction of causality is the other way (economic development => increased access to education).

At any rate, perhaps by 2020 the Nigerian economy can support the # of graduates we are producing now. But to hope that by 2016 it will be able to support 800k to me seems nothing more than wishful thinking. I don't think anyone is predicting more than 8% GDP growth/year in Nigeria over that time period, are they? With population growth close to 3%/year, I don't see how a case can be made for increasing the amount of university admissions by 3X or 4X.

To be clear, I'm not trying to be some sort of elitist pig. But you don't want to end up like Iran:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain_in_Iran

Sinking a bunch of money into training college graduates that will then just be stolen from you by the US, Canada, Europe, etc.

Imo, sink money into providing quality education up to the secondary level. Does it make sense to be saying you want 800k students entering university when Nigerian secondary students will probably do very poorly in international assessments like PISA or TIMSS?

Let's get primary and secondary education in Nigeria right before worrying about increasing enrollment in university, imo.

As my old man always likes to say, we shouldn't major in minor.

more unemployement by 2020 when all those 800,000 are thru from the university.

ekt_bear:

Hehe

Correlation is not causation, as you probably already very well know 

Agreed.

ekt_bear:

If I had to guess, the direction of causality is the other way (economic development => increased access to education).

Perhaps. But it's not often not so clear cut as that. The Americans won the race to the moon largely because they poured resources into education in the decade leading up to 1969. If Nigeria is to gain an edge in the global marketplace in terms of innovation and competitiveness, the more the proportion of our population has access to tertiary education, the better. Consider the National Demographic Health Survey which shows that increased maternal education correlates with improved infant and child survival. This is borne out by my undergraduate thesis which showed that increased maternal education was a significant predictor of child health. I think a university education helps to broaden horizons and provides people with the tools needed to succeed as entrepreneurs. Is it surprising that most of the more successful business men have had a university education? Perhaps our differences in opinion lie in how we view tertiary education. I consider it at an individualistic level i.e. it improves a man or woman, while I suppose you are looking at it in terms of the broader economy i.e. tertiary education as a means to a job.

ekt_bear:

At any rate, perhaps by 2020 the Nigerian economy can support the # of graduates we are producing now. But to hope that by 2016 it will be able to support 800k to me seems nothing more than wishful thinking. I don't think anyone is predicting more than 8% GDP growth/year in Nigeria over that time period, are they? With population growth close to 3%/year, I don't see how a case can be made for increasing the amount of university admissions by 3X or 4X.

Being a bit pedantic I guess, but 800K amounts to 2x the current levels and not 3x or 4x as you seem to suggest. An annual GDP growth of 8% over the same time period should be adequate to take care of that. Moreover we all agree that a growth rate of 8% can easily be surpassed once the Government tackles the problem of adequate power supply. I am optimistic that that will be the case.

ekt_bear:

To be clear, I'm not trying to be some sort of elitist pig. But you don't want to end up like Iran:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain_in_Iran

I know you are not an elitist pig.
Brain drain is a problem all developing countries face and is not alien to Nigeria especially considering that there is a shortage of personnel like doctors and nurses in some Western countries. In fact, it is stated there are more Nigerian-trained doctors in the USA than are in Nigeria itself. This is to be expected where you have highly mobile and well-trained professionals in today's globalized economy. What needs to be done is to put in place measures that will stem that Brain Drain. In the case of Nigerian doctors, it was the poor remuneration but with the recent pay rises effected for doctors that should stem the flow. You may also want ton consider the example of India which has been able to successfully attract some of it's citizens back into the country. For Iran, I would say the problem rises largely from the restrictive and authoritarian system of government in place there. Those most likely to feel the weight of these restrictions in freedoms and censorship would be the highly educated middle-class and they would react by emigrating.
I think Nigeria can only benefit by having a highly educated middle-class as these will only help to deepen our democracy.

ekt_bear:

Sinking a bunch of money into training college graduates that will then just be stolen from you by the US, Canada, Europe, etc.

Not every college graduate will be "stolen" by the US, Canada, etc. For example, throughout the period I was in the US, I had no desire to live and work there. Why? Because, I realized my standard of living wasn't any different from what I would get back home as a doctor. In some instances, living in Nigeria is easier. And this buttresses the point I made earlier: as the economy improves and standard of living rises, the Brain Drain is going to reduce.

ekt_bear:

Imo, sink money into providing quality education up to the secondary level. Does it make sense to be saying you want 800k students entering university when Nigerian secondary students will probably do very poorly in international assessments like PISA or TIMSS?

Let's get primary and secondary education in Nigeria right before worrying about increasing enrollment in university, imo.

There is nothing wrong in increasing access to university education while improving basic and secondary education.

ekt_bear:

As my old man always likes to say, we shouldn't major in minor.

You seem to be saying this a lot this days.

@aletheia: It doesn't make sense to compare the US to Nigeria. One is a very wealthy country, the other is very poor. Even if we accept this argument of yours that pouring resources into education in the 60s was what made America great (a questionable argument), doesn't mean the same will be true for Nigeria. Is the US likely to be the best point of reference for Nigeria, a country that has been amongst the wealthiest in the world since at least 1900AD? Probably not.

Regarding increasing university education and also improving primary and secondary education, well, in a world with finite funds, we have to prioritize what we want to get done.

I don't have a problem with those who view university through this same "individualistic" lense you view it. There are lots of such things which are laudable like art, sports, etc. But it is one thing to like these things, another to ask someone else to pay for you to enjoy them. Especially when it is something expensive like a quality university education.

And no, I don't see how the projected growth in Nigeria over the next 5 years will be enough. My guess is that it is not. That sort of growth over 20 or 30 years maybe, but not over just 5.

^Shall we agree to disagree then?

The opinion held by @ekt bear seems shallow to me. Saying that cos someone may end up not hitting top-class jobs after graduation as an engineer, d person shud not train to become an engineer, which has always been his dream is shallow. Telling us that tax-payers' money shud not be used to train such a person (d person shud be trained by his family) is akin to asserting that his family members are not tax payers. . .that they are mutually exclusive. Or shud we now use his family members' taxes to train others that we are already sure wud work for Shell and BP?

What happens to adding more value to our education so as to make d engineers and other graduands able to practice on their own as consultants and manufacturers. . .thereby becoming employers of labour? Do u mean to tell me that subsidy is the only work d govt needs to do? Our universities can be helped to attain global standards and also increase their capacity except we feel that d country is overpopulated. In the latter case, we shud adopt Chinese one-child-per family policy.

aletheia:

^Shall we agree to disagree then?

Looks like it, hehe

I am particularly concerned about the issue of access.

While i beleive it is good to increase access to education, It is imperative for us to inculcate commensurate level
of quality into the system.

It is not just enough to have it, the quality matters.

A graduate of 1990 without any experience for example should not be better of than that of 2011

Ultimately, I wish policy like this were not set on a national level, but a zonal one. If @alethieia's zone wants to subsidize education for all, more power to 'em.

If my zone decides to focus on its top 20 or 30% of JAMB takers, then we should be able to do so.

One-size-fits all, cookie-cutter approaches like rarely work out well.

And if each zone gets to set its own educational policy, within a short period of time we'd see what works well and what doesn't. So bad policy will get discarded more rapidly.

This is madness when the number of admission seekers will times 3 the present number.

ekt_bear:

Ultimately, I wish policy like this were not set on a national level, but a zonal one. If @alethieia's zone wants to subsidize education for all, more power to 'em.

If my zone decides to focus on its top 20 or 30% of JAMB takers, then we should be able to do so.

One-size-fits all, cookie-cutter approaches like rarely work out well.

And if each zone gets to set its own educational policy, within a short period of time we'd see what works well and what doesn't. So bad policy will get discarded more rapidly.

^
I agree with you on this. Devolve more powers to the federating units.

^^^and that was what Awo did in d SW of the 60's and 70's. . .I think it worked wonders for them. Our problem is lack of will to continue with past good policies. . .policy reversal. Education subsidy is needed but it must go along with improvement in d quality of delivery, which shud be geared towards entrepreneurship. . . practical rather than theory.

GEJ policy of introducing new universities is totally ill adviced. I was reading the NEEDS Document sometime ago and it stated that the highest type of unemployment in nigeria is graduate unemployment at 80%. For goodness sake we should encourage technical education and farming instead of pushing more students to study courses that are not relevant to our employment needs