Enough of private and public universities

Good judgment finally prevailed when the Federal Government announced it had imposed a seven-year moratorium on the establishment of new federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. The reasons are all indisputably judicious: the proliferation has overstretched resources, many of the schools are under-utilised, and the quality of the education they provide would not pass muster. The only thing they missed was introspecting on their own role in the inordinate multiplication of these tertiary institutions. In just two years, the Bola Tinubu administration established at least 12 tertiary institutions—eight universities, two polytechnics, and two colleges of education. What is amusing about this tertiary institution establishment spree is that in October 2023, then Education Minister Mamman Tahir announced that, due to financial constraints and other considerations, they would need to stagger the take-off of the 37 new universities approved by Muhammadu Buhari mere days before his administration wound down. The same administration would go on to worsen an already debilitated situation.

Why exactly was it necessary to have so many universities in the first place? Many existing schools suffer from underfunding. Last year, the University of Ibadan announced that power supply on its campus would be reduced because the energy distribution company had dropped supply to 10-12 hours daily; the university could not augment as much with generators due to the prohibitive costs of fuel. This problem cuts across universities nationwide. Amidst all these recurring issues, the government continues to add more schools. Why?

There was a time when the establishment of universities held meaning, but that is no longer the case. The government that can no longer create new states to satisfy the endless yearning for recognition by disparate communities throughout the country now creates schools instead. Establishing a tertiary institution in every provincial corner of the country in lieu of state creation has become a form of compensatory politics—kick-forwarding a supposed favour that will be called in when election season comes around. The arrangement has produced more opportunities to award contracts (which, of course, come with their own inherent kickbacks) and a reward system for the social brokers who recruited Kith and kin into these schools.

The government that has serially failed to create a conducive environment necessary for businesses to thrive and for jobs to subsequently multiply has found a shortcut to glory in establishing tertiary institutions. In place of good education, these schools have developed an increasingly complex bureaucracy. Each of them recruits academic and non-academic staff to create an unsustainable payroll. The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, who announced the FG’s resolve, noted that “in one northern university, there are 1,200 staff (members) serving fewer than 800 students.” That is a scandal. Why does a government already groaning from the weight of its recurrent expenditure take on this needless burden to achieve dubious goals? If universities were a profit-generating enterprise, the story would be different. Universities are ventures that, even within the best environment, consume a lot of resources and yield results only in the long term. An investment in tertiary education is worthwhile, but Nigeria is too undercapitalised to afford frivolities. It is about time the government divested itself from the university business altogether and let the ones already established find their feet. Let the schools focus on building a culture of rigorous intellection, shaping moral character, and enhancing students’ civic preparation.

If possible, I would request a similar hold to be placed on establishing private tertiary institutions as well. Many of the individuals and organisations submitting applications for licences for private universities would better serve society with more fundamental forms of education, such as primary and secondary schools, rather than at the tertiary level. But of course, this is Nigeria. Having a university has become another status symbol and setting one up is a shortcut to accruing social prestige. Some of these schools are established without a clear mission or character defined for them

Many of them cannot even articulate their mission on their websites. They are a little more than a degree mill, proliferated like pure water factories.

Curiously, the Nigerian government at federal and state levels, private organisations, and some moneyed individuals keep piling on universities at time the youths have been expressing their disenchantment with formal education altogether social trends like “skills, not degrees” and “education is a scam” are not just casual observations from indolent minds who would rather follow the employment path of “content creation” or even engage in dishonorable internet-based scams. These statements reflect a growing disillusionment with formal education and credentialing as the primary route to social mobility.

The world where people once ardently believed in the power of formal education and made sacrifices for their children is fast slipping away from us. The past decades have not quite justified that faith, and the morally unscrupulous parents among us have demonstrated that much by apprenticing their children to internet scammers. The internet is now the route to quick wealth for those who know their way around it, and everyone plus their mothers are now doggedly positioned in front of a screen trying to game the algorithms for gain. Education is the major casualty in this new social order. We are sleepwalking our way into a major moral crisis at some point if we are not careful. What does the government do to confront these issues? They build more schools!

The final point I would like to make is one I have canvassed for in the past. To stem the problem of under-enrolment in some schools, the government should also make the application process more flexible. It is hard to accept that in a country where more than two million students wrote the UTME, it still happened that “199 universities received fewer than 100 applications through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board last year and 34 schools recorded zero applications!” In the press conference where Alausa disclosed this, he also added that “of the 295 polytechnics nationwide, many had fewer than 99 applicants while 219 colleges of education also posted poor enrolment figures, including 64 with no applications at all”. These are shocking figures, and a strong argument for putting a hold on establishing more universities for a long time to come.

However, some of these problems of under-enrolment can be solved if UTME candidates are not made to pre-select their school choices. When they pre-select, many students overestimate their abilities and choose the top schools. Virtually everyone thinks they are competitive enough to go to the University of Ibadan or any of its peers. When their UTME scores fall short of what is required for admission, they are left with either buying a priced change of institution form (to select a more favourable choice) or re-sitting the exam the following year (thereby swelling the number of applicants). You can free that bottleneck by letting them apply to as many schools as possible after they have received their scores. That way, applicants can realistically select choices within the range of their graded abilities. The schools that presently have no applicants will eventually be chosen either as a first choice or as a fallback plan.