The February 24, 2014 edition of The Monday Bulletin, the official in-house journal of the National Universities Commission, NUC, was particularly loaded with interesting features stories. The one that particularly caught my attention was the report of a fact-finding tour of some Ghanaian universities by a group of Nigerian journalists. The tour was quite revealing of the unfounded myth of the ‘Golden Fleece’ woven around many foreign universities; myths that were often touted as reasons why hordes of Nigerian youth troop yearly to foreign countries in pursuit of their educational dreams.
According to the Monday Bulletin’s report, two of the ‘universities’ visited – the Sikkin Manipal University, Accra, Ghana, and the Wisconsin International College University, Ghana, – are academic apologies (pardon the coinage). These degree mills draw most of their student population from Nigeria. In fact, Nigerians are said to form more than 95 percent of the student population of Sikkin Manipal University, whose only ‘campus’ is located inside a shopping mall, the seven-storey Abena Aleaa Towers, in the heart of Accra. So many nauseating revelations were made about the programme content and quality of some of these institutions.
For instance, to get admitted into the institutions, international students do not need to write any entrance examination such as the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, an applicant only needs six PASSES, not CREDITS in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, O’ Level, or its equivalent, or two PASSES in the Advanced Level examination. This is in contra-distinction from the requirements from Ghanaian admission seekers, who need to have six credit passes (three in core subjects and three in elective subjects). Also, once admitted, an international student is sure to graduate in three years with the Bachelor’s degree even in such courses as Engineering that normally run for five years in Nigerian universities.
One of the reasons for the craze for foreign admissions, especially into Ghanaian universities, is the paucity of admission opportunities into Nigerian universities. Another ‘justification’ could be the ridiculously lower admission requirements of some of these Ghanaian ‘universities.’ All the nation’s 129 universities combined, comprising 40 federal, 38 state and 51 private ones, could only admit 520,000 of the 1,735,720 students that sat for last year’s UTME. And coming home, the University of Ilorin had space for only 8,587 of the over 103,000 candidates that applied to the university in the 2013/2014 academic session.
The current carrying capacity of the accredited tertiary institutions in the country is abysmally low. This scenario has not only driven many promising youth out of the shores of the country; it has also fuelled the proliferation of fake and sub-standard ‘private universities’ in the country to which desperate admission seekers fall victims every year.
This situation is a serious cause for concern and all hands must be on deck to rescue the nation from the spectre of sub-standard and ill-trained manpower in the future, a situation that could arise if the army of graduates from some of these foreign ‘universities’ eventually pour back into the country.
In view of this, there is a pressing need to increase the carrying capacity of Nigerian tertiary institutions to be able to accommodate more admission seekers. The federal government should, as a matter of urgency, revisit the mega-varsity plan it mooted some time ago and give the deserving fillip to the realisation of the noble idea. In one of its meetings in April last year, the National Economic Council, NEC, recommended to the Federal Executive Council the conversion of one university in each of the six geo-political zones of the country to the status of a Mega University. The recommendation was informed by the need to expand the number of intakes by creating universities that will be able to admit up to 200,000 students, at a go, as against the present less than 10,000 admitted yearly by some of the biggest universities in the country. The thinking is that when the scheme takes off, the six mega-universities will be able to collectively admit up to a maximum of 1.2million students yearly. If this happens, the number of qualified admission seekers that are yearly denied places in the nation’s tertiary institutions would be drastically reduced.
However, as forward-looking as this proposal seems, nothing appears to be happening to it almost a year after it was mooted. If anything, the plan appears to be rusting away on one dingy shelf in one Ministry or extra-ministerial Department. Meanwhile, the number of admission seekers in the country keeps rising every year, with the concomitant result that more and more potential Nigerian undergraduates are being driven to the likes of Sikkin Manipal degree mills.
Indeed, there is no better time than now for the government to act on the NEC recommendation and create the six mega universities as a remedial measure to tackle university admission problems in the country. And if and when this is done, the University of Ilorin should be considered for the slot of the North-Central Zone while the University of Lagos could get the South-West slot; the University of Benin for the South-South and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, should be given the South-East slot. The North-West and North-East slots should go to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the University of Maiduguri, respectively.
My suggestion of the University of Ilorin for the North-Central Zone’s is anchored on very objective parameters. It would be recalled that the university was recently tapped by the federal government to help salvage the nation’s dwindling global educational rating and restore Nigeria to its former position of reckoning in world universities’ ranking, with a mandate to champion the government’s new vision of uplifting university education in the country.
Over the years, the University of Ilorin has proven to be a centre of academic excellence and has, in the past four years, been consistently ranked the best university in Nigeria by different international ranking agencies, including Web of World Universities (Webometric). For three consecutive years – 2009, 2010 and 2011 – Unilorin was ranked the best in Nigeria and one of the best 20 in Africa. Statistics have also shown that the university has the most stable and consistent academic calendar in the country, which makes it the most sought after institution by admission seekers.
Akogun is the Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs, University of Ilorin
Moreover, in its sustained quest for excellence and to liberalise career choice for admission seekers, the university has recently introduced new academic programmes with the establishment of three new faculties and the unbundling of some ‘unwieldy’ departments.
While a brand new Faculty of Environmental Sciences, with the full complement of departments, was established; two other faculties – Life Science and Management Sciences – were excised from the old Faculty of Science and Faculty of Business and Social Sciences respectively.
Also, some departments in the Faculty of Education have been unbundled to widen their academic programmes. In this regard, the Department of Arts and Social Science Education was split into the Department of Arts Education and the Department of Social Science Education. The Department of Science Education has also been split into the Department of Science Education and the Department of Educational Technology.
Moreover, the University of Ilorin has the singular reputation of running the most stable academic calendar in the nation’s university system, having consistently shunned any strike action since the past 12 years or so. Indeed, the university is an epitome of a harmonious environment where the rule of law reigns supreme. Most anti-social behaviours that are the hallmarks of most universities in Nigeria are an anathema at the University of Ilorin with its strict enforcement of codes of good conducts and especially its zero tolerance for cultism.
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