After almost twenty years writing on just about every subject concerning our national life, it has recently occurred to me that the most important work had been neglected. That is the education of Nigerian youth at all levels.
But, for now I am starting with university education and more specifically private universities.
University education in Nigeria presents a paradox; close to 80 per cent of kids leaving secondary schools can’t obtain admission to universities and tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Yet, there are surprisingly thousands of vacancies in public and private universities – especially private universities.
A second paradox confronts us. Nigerians complain about the quality of education available in most Nigerian universities; so they send their kids to Ghana and spend $500 million, or N80 billion, a year on that venture. Yet, there are at least 12 private universities in Nigeria which offer superior education than any university in Ghana.
For a start, N80bn spent in Nigeria, given the multiplier effect of expenditures in the private sector, can boost our economy by as much as N320bn – which is far in excess of the N87bn which ASUU demands and government cannot pay.
There would have been nothing to worry about if indeed universities in Ghana are better and sending Nigerian kids there represents value for money.
But, in strictly economic terms what is happening can , at best, be interpreted as waste or money laundering in favour of Ghana. At worst, it is financial insanity. Why travel to another country to obtain something inferior?
Several parents have told me they sent their kids abroad, including Ghana, because of incessant strikes in Nigerian universities. Surprisingly, none of them is aware that ASUU strikes close down only federal and state universities. Private universities are not affected at all.
As you are reading this article, the American University of Nigeria, AUN, an oasis of excellence in the midst of squalor and backwardness, which I visited last week for three rigorous days, is in session. Lecturers are teaching; students are learning. The facilities, for which ASUU had been demanding, without results, are available at most private varsities in abundance.
Take, for instance, the ‘simple’ provision of power supply and potable water 24/7. Virtually all the GOOD private varsities have achieved this. Please note the emphasis on ‘good’ because this is not going to be a blanket endorsement of all private varsities. There are at least 25 unaccredited scams operating as varsities and giving Nigerian private varsities a bad name. We will visit all genuine varsities and report to you our findings. Forget the school if the name fails to appear here.
After spending over 30 years traveling throughout Nigeria, often stopping to visit varsities, public and private, it has dawned on me that lack of information is at the heart of most of our problems in this case.
The varsities have tried their best; or so they think. They place advertisements in newspapers announcing vacancies and in attempts to recruit prospective students. Some even include the pictures of their infrastructure in the adverts for which they pay heavily.
Newspaper adverts
While newspaper adverts generate patronage, generally, they fail to serve the purposes of all the stakeholders – prospective students, parents or guardians, government sponsors, prospective lecturers, employers of labour etc. Three main reasons account for this.
Newspaper circulation is declining in Nigeria. In a survey carried out in 2008 and repeated in 2009 by Mr. Chris Doghuje of Zeus Bureau and me, we established how daily circulation of newspapers had gone down considerably. I had, since 2009, conducted a mini-survey, every year, on my own and the drop from 2009 till today is close to 15%.
More ominously for print media houses, the decline will continue for the foreseeable future. The largest selling paper, name withheld, distributes less than 60,000 a day and the second, name also withheld, suffers the same faith. Even adverts in two or three papers will reach no more than 300,000 potential readers – not all of whom are among the stakeholders – as defined above. The vast majority of stakeholders are never reached that way. Increasingly, readers are moving to on-line reading where Vanguard leads all others.
To be concluded.
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