Report exposes rot in public varsities, proposes 189 recommendations [size=9pt][/size]

NIGERIA'S tertiary education sub - sector is in some pretty serious trouble. The public universities are in dire straits, many of them are being mismanaged and are not anywhere near the position to either fulfill their mandates effectively, or serve the country’s quality manpower and economic needs.

A heart-rending report, put together by a 10-member Needs Assessment Committee, headed by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and with former Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU), President, Prof Ukachukwu Awuzie as member, has revealed that public universities have largely become a mockery of what citadels of learning should be.

And in what will further shock many Nigerians, some Professors, of all people, entrusted with managing the public universities, have actually been doing the exact opposite: defiling them, shortchanging hapless students, deliberately deceiving the regulatory authorities just to look good, and going as far as hiring mercenary staff to secure underserved accreditation.

The committee, which had 10 terns of reference, was put together as part of the comprehensive 2009 ASUU/FG agreement. Besides, Yakubu and Awuzie, other members were: Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, Representative of the Senate Committee on Education; Mr. Jerry Alagbaoso, Representative, House of Representatives’ Committee on Education; Raymond Brown from the office of the Secretary to the Federal Government and Dr Jamila Shuara, Director of Higher Education at the Federal Ministry of Education.

Others include Adeyinka Jones, representing the Federal Ministry of Finance; Emmanuel Uchola from the Federal Ministry of Trade & Investment; Mrs Victoria Oluyole, who represented the National Planning Commission; Late Mrs. Chinwe Obi, from the National Universities Commission who was replaced by Mr. Ayo Bankole and Mr. Femi Melefa who served as the secretary.

The committee’s scope covered 27 federal and 34 state universities (out of the 74 existing public universities in the country), leaving out only the 10 newly established federal universities and three state-owned: Sokoto State University, North West University, Kano and Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. It interacted with pro chancellors and vice chancellors in all public universities. It also met with other university managers.

With regard to infrastructure, the committee found that physical facilities for teaching and learning in the public universities were inadequate, dilapidated, over-stretched and improvised. In some instances, pressure is applied on existing facilities due to unplanned expansion of programmes.

For instance, the committee discovered that Ebonyi State University created 11 faculties in 11 years. The University of Abuja established four capital-intensive programmes in one day. The Osun State University has three sets of medical students in limbo between pre-clinical and clinical stages, due to the absence of a teaching hospital.

On laboratories and workshops, the committee found out that many of them were old with inappropriate furnishing. Power and water supply problems persist; they had scanty and broken furniture and were overcrowded. Besides, equipment and consumables were absent, inadequate or outdated. Kerosene stoves were being used as Bunsen burners in some, including the Universities of Uyo and Jos. Some Engineering workshops were operating under zinc sheds and trees, and many science-based faculties were running what is referred to as “Dry Lab,” due to lack of reagents and tools to conduct real experiments. Sadly, no laboratory in any public university ranks among the top 1000 in the world.

It was also discovered that less than 10 per cent of the universities have video conferencing facility; less than 20 per cent use interactive boards; more than 50 per cent do not use public address systems in their lecture theatres, and none of the universities had fully automated library resources. In fact, many library resources were found to be outdated, while less than 35 percent are partially automated.

The report revealed that there were a total of 701 physical development projects across the all the public universities, out which 163 or 23.3 per cent are abandoned. About 538 or 76.7 per cent are on-going. Some of them are 15 years old and 60 per cent of them are being funded by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) has the highest number of abandoned projects – 22. All the Niger Delta Development Commission’s (NDDC) projects across universities in the Niger Delta states have been abandoned. About 84 per percent of them are students’ hostels.

The report revealed that a majority of the universities are grossly understaffed, rely heavily on part-time and visiting lecturers, have under-qualified academics and have no effective staff development programme outside TETFund’s intervention and the Presidential First Class Scholarship programme.

The report affirmed that there are 37,504 academics (83 per cent of which are male) in the country’s public universities, out of which 23,030 or 61 per cent are employed in federal universities, while 14,474 or 39 per cent are in the state-owned universities. The result is a very high teaching staff/student ratio in many universities, with the University of Abuja having a ratio of 1:122, National Open University of Nigeria, 1: 363 and the Lagos State University (LASU), 1:114.

The report also revealed a serious crisis of manpower. Instead of having 100 per cent academics having doctorates, only 43 per cent have the qualification, while 57 per cent don’t. Besides, only seven universities (Imo State University, Universities of Uyo, Port Harcourt, Ilorin, Calabar, National Open University of Nigeria and Ondo State University of Science and Technology) have 60 per cent of their academic staff with PhDs.

The Kano State University of Science and Technology, established in 2001 has only one professor and 25 Ph.D. holders. Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, established in 2006 has only two professors and five Ph.D. holders. The Ondo State University of Science and Technology, established in 2008 has only 29 lecturers. Out of the 37,504 lecturers in the public universities, only 28, 128 or 75 per cent are engaged on full time basis. The remaining 9, 376 or 25 per cent are recycled as visiting adjunct, sabbatical and contract lecturers.

The report also revealed that in the Gombe State University, only four of the 47 professors are full-time while all the 25 readers are visiting. In Plateau State University, 74 per cent of the lecturers are visiting while in the Kaduna State University, only 24 out of the 174 Ph.D. holders are full-time staff.

Obviously exasperated by this discovery, the report stated: “The phenomenon seems unregulated or the regulation is defied. A tenure staff in one university can visit many universities, irrespective of distance, without any control. Some academics are always on the road, travelling from one university town to another and unable to meet their primary obligations with their tenure-employer. It is making some proprietors of State Universities to believe that they can run Universities without any programme for academic staff development and for recruiting full-time lecturers.”

As if this was not enough, the committee’s findings on the non – teaching staff were also mind-boggling. The committee maintained that while staff members under this category in the university system are intended to provide administrative and technical support for the maintenance of infrastructural facilities; payroll/personnel and library services, it was discovered that the disposition of this class of staff appeared to have redefined the objectives of the university.

Take the findings: they, the non-teaching staff, are numerically more than the teaching staff they are meant to support. Specifically, the report affirmed that there are 77,511 full-time non-teaching staff members in the country’s public universities, which is twice the total number of full-time teaching staff. In some universities, it was discovered that the non-teaching staff double, triple or quadruple the teaching staff. This means that more expenditure is incurred in administration and routine functions than in core academic matters.

The committee revealed that at the University of Benin alone, there are more senior staff in the registrar cadre than professors, while the Obafemi Awolowo University has more senior administrative than teaching staff.

While the report noted that almost all the universities are over-staffed with non-teaching staff, it also stated that in spite of this general glut of non-teaching staff, those that have reached retirement age are still being retained in the university services on contract, while new recruitment continues. And over 70 per cent of the non-teaching staff members do not have first degrees. “This is partly responsible for the ballooning of the non-teaching staff. The implication of this is over-blown personnel cost and misuse of available resources in the university system,” the report submitted.

On students’ enrolment, the report disclosed that there are a total of 1,252,913 students in the public universities: 85 per cent are undergraduates; five per cent sub-degree; three per cent postgraduate diploma; five per cent master’s and two per cent Ph.D.

According to the report, 960,132 or 76.6 per cent of this figure are enrolled in 16 federal and nine state universities. Overall, 798,661 students or 63.7 per cent are in federal universities, while 454,252 students or 36.3 per cent are in the state universities. Eight of them - Lagos State University, universities of Abuja, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Maiduguri, Ekiti State University and the National Open University of Nigeria account for 33 per cent of total students’ enrolment in Nigeria.

Among the undergraduate students, 33.1 per cent are studying arts and social sciences; 33 per cent – management sciences and education courses; 16 per cent – science and education science courses; five per cent – medicine; 3.9 per cent – agriculture; 1.4 per cent pharmacy and 1.3 per cent law.

On hostel accommodation, the report observed: “The provision of decent hostel accommodation to at least 50 per cent of the student population in any residential university is proving to be an uphill task for Nigerian universities. University managers have, over the years, been unable to diversify their means of providing hostel accommodation and associated facilities to students. The management styles of students accommodation is generally ineffective and has left majority of the hostel facilities in a state of disrepair. There has been, over the last two decades, an upsurge of students’ population in almost all Nigerian universities, but there was no commensurate improvement of accommodation and other student services.

“ Consequently, there is a lot of pressure on the available accommodation facilities. As a result, there is rapid deterioration of hostel facilities, overcrowding and undue congestion in rooms, overstretched lavatory and laundry facilities and poor sanitation. These conditions, coupled with the general condition of the universities, produce graduates that lack confidence and sometimes even self-worth.”

The Committee also found that: there are about 109,509 (representing 10.3 per cent of total student population) on-campus hostels’ bed spaces across all public universities in Nigeria. Except the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) Kaduna, no university in Nigeria can accommodate more than 35 per cent of its students. Less than 1 per cent of the hostels are provided via Public Private Partnership (PPP). All Federal Universities charge N90 per bed space per session, plus hostel maintenance fee that varies between N5,000.00 and N20,000.00. The hostels attract an average fee of N6,000 for maintenance, while each bed space costs at least N90 per session. There are however many universities that charge higher than this.

The report continued: “The lavatories in most of the hostels of Nigerian universities are both inadequate and unfit for human use. This is not surprising given the average ratio of toilet to users of 1:20. The unhealthy condition of lavatories is forcing some students to use the bush and/or the surrounding compounds of the hostels as open toilets. This poses serious health hazard. In some universities (for example Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU), female students take their bath in the open because the bathrooms are in very poor condition. The hostels are infested with rodents. Laundries and common rooms in many universities have been converted into rooms where students live. In these improvised rooms, there is no limit to the number of occupants.”

On municipal services, the report declared: “It is generally observed that very poor maintenance culture is costing Nigerian Universities a lot of resources. Municipal services that require cheap and routine maintenance schedules are generally ignored until they completely fail or collapse. Artisans and technicians in most universities are sidelined in favour of contractors, who are not familiar with university installations and infrastructures. Basic municipal facilities like water, electricity, transportation, market are either lacking or highly inadequate. Most of the universities rely on water tankers and boreholes. There is no university that has a functional integrated water supply and distribution network. There is no organised market on most of the university campuses, resulting in inappropriate use of learning spaces for trade. Healthcare facilities at the Universities are grossly inadequate. The land areas of most universities are unsecured and are therefore encroached upon by neighbouring communities.”

The committee made a total of 189 recommendations to the federal government on how to reposition the public universities.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104765:report-exposes-rot-in-public-varsities-proposes-189-recommendations&catid=80:education&Itemid=610#comments

Still no concrete change in our approach to funding and running of public schools under this administration and we expect drastic changes to take place.