By International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
(Intersociety)
In the part -three of
our Public Information on the smokescreen nature of the 2009
Agreement between ASUU and the Federal Government of Nigeria as per solutions
to the failed higher education in the country and how less than 5% of Nigeria’s
estimated population of 170 million corner and pocket annually close to 80% of
the country’s public finances through scandalous allowances and overheads, we
concluded that part by pointing out the inability of the Nigerian citizens to
access tertiary education in the country owing to inadequate number of higher
institutions, awkward education policies by regulatory agencies and prohibitive
running costs of government that take chunk of resources off educational
development in the country. That only 297 higher education institutions are
left to serve 170 million people of Nigeria is a clear sign of monumental
failure of higher education in the country. That the 297 higher institutions
including 124 accredited universities cannot boast of at least 10 million
student population owing to their manual and unscientific guidelines and
methods of tutorship makes the country’s tertiary education not only archaic,
but also an opponent of modern educational innovations.
The United States, for
instance, has 5,758 degree awarding institutions for her 313 million
people. Brazil has 2,368 higher institutions for her 192 million people.
Japan has 918 universities for her 127.6 million people. Philippine has 2,080
higher institutions for her 92.3 million people. Vietnam has 146 universities
for her 87.8 million people. Ethiopia has 141 universities for her 84.3 million
people. South Korea has 432 higher institutions for her 48.5 million people and
Taiwan has 173 universities including 9 security universities for her 23.4
million people. While Nigeria, with an estimated population of 170 million
people has only 124 accredited universities and 173 other higher institutions.
The UK Open
University-an internationally rated distance learning provider and one of the
best 500 universities in the world, has a total student population of 193, 835
as at 2012. It is followed by the University of London with its colleges, which
has a total student population of 128, 580 as at 2012. In Nigeria, the total
student population of the 124 accredited universities is not up to 1.5 million
and the entire student population of the 297 higher institutions in the country
is not up to 3 million. Out of 20.3 million students in the USA universities
alone as at 2010, 14, 6 million enrolled full time and 5, 6 million studied
through part-time and distance learning.
Nigeria’s higher
education institutions are also highly parasitic and scientifically
under-developed. Other than exorbitant school fees, government subventions and
loans, they will crumble. Corruption and loss of values have become a serious
challenge threatening the corporate integrity of the country’s higher
institutions. Award of honorary degrees is now pegged for the highest bidders
and given to celebrated generators of violence and public corruption in the
country. In the United States, as at 2006, 765 colleges and universities had
combined endowment assets of $340Billion, out of which, Harvard University had
$29Billion(Intersociety 2012). There are 120 full research universities in the
USA using their rich libraries and laboratories to find solutions to social
problems, but in Nigeria, none of the 297 higher institutions is
socio-scientific research oriented.
Apart from the fact that
laws setting up the three main regulatory agencies for the 297 higher education
institutions in Nigeria such as the NUC Act of 1974 for 124
accredited universities, NCCE Act of 1989 for 50 colleges of education and
NABTE Act of 1977 for 97 polytechnics and 26 monotechnics, are obsolete and out
of tune with modern international higher education regulatory requirements, the
managements of the three main regulatory agencies are led by BBC
scholars; that is to say professors and doctors born
before computer age. Because of arrogance and pride,
these BBC professors and doctors refused to learn computer
and its immeasurable values and cultures. As a result, they have become
resistant to computer age education resources. The only infantile efforts they
made to beat “compuphobia” so as to remain relevant among
their international colleagues was to hire fresh computers graduates, diploma
holders and under-graduates as personal assistants for the purposes of opening
and maintenance of electronic mails as well as contributing to electronic
journals and researches nationally and internationally.
A good number of
Nigerian academic scholars at professorial and doctoral cadre are still
computer illiterate. Three, if not four out of every five of them cannot make a
presentation or deliver lectures using power-point and excel technologies.
Most of the 297 higher education institutions in Nigeria still use pen and
paper, chalk and manual board mounted under trees, in shanties and prison-like
block apartments with their students swelling and smelling like Christmas
Goats and refugees.
There is no accurate
data for tertiary institutions’ student population in Nigeria and the student
data for individual higher institution is very unreliable. Electronic resources
for higher education in Nigeria are near absent. The only university in the
country that is computer and electronic friendly is the National Open
University of Nigeria (NOUN), modeled after the UK, Hong Kong and India Open
Universities, yet its feat is being frustrated by the BBC professors
and doctors at the NUC, who belong to the age of typewriter. Recently,
a department in a federal polytechnic in the Southeast Nigeria went wild in
celebration over its successful experiment in electronic exams, whereas
NOUN has successfully used it for four years only for the BBC
professorial and doctorial peopled NUC to command it to revert to pen
and paper.
In the Catholic Regis
University of USA, built in 1877, for instance, all the modern
electronic education resources and international network access are in place
despite the university’s ancient age. A professor or doctorate degree holder,
who teaches in the university, can be a student in another department (i.e.
computer and ICT program). A number of their professors teach in the university
through distance access remedial resources such as power-point powered
by internet access. One of the University’s professors who lives in Indonesia
teaches her students from her country’s base using e-education technology.
Through this means, 20,000 students can have access to two professors no matter
their locations on earth. In Nigeria, this is the secret behind the successful
and historic production of first Nigerian powered criminologists and
security experts by NOUN in 2012. Career criminologists are very
few in Nigeria, but through e-education resources, their seminal works were
made available to the concerned students. This is a major challenge
facing many Nigerian universities that wish to run such an important program
owing to mounting security challenges in the country.
Recommendations:
It is our recommendation
that the Federal and State Ministries of Education should conduct advanced
computer and ICT tests on all lecturers in their higher institutions, starting
from graduate assistants to full time and contract professors and
those without computer and ICT literacy should be enrolled to study and acquire
same mandatorily. We also recommend as a matter of firmness and urgency that
all the executive secretaries of NUC, NCCE and NABTE should be sacked and their
entire managements overhauled and re-peopled with computer and ICT compliant
scholars. The NUC Act of 1974, NCCE Act of 1989 and NABTE Act of 1977, which
are the typewriter ageenactments should be overhauled and
brought in tune with modern international higher education policies and
guidelines. Suspension of part-time programs by NUC in 2012 should
not only be lifted but also e-education resources including distance learning
should be made a policy with merit-based and incorruptible guidelines.
At NOUN, corruption
index is at its lowest ebb and to pass exams in the university, course
materials must be studied back and front. In its
e-exams, exams hours are not only strictly regulated by the computer under the
watchful eyes of invigilators, but students’ marks are instantly graded. This
gives no rooms for sorting, award of fictitious marks for a fee or
for a pant and sexual harassment, violence and student-lecturer cultism. One
fundamental way to address the brain drain syndrome in
Nigeria is by institutionalizing electronic education resources in
the country’s higher education system. The think home philosophy for
Nigeria’s tens of thousands of academic scholars teaching in overseas including
between 25,000 and 30, 000 or more Nigerian academic scholars in the United
States will begin with this noble approach. Through internet powered
e-education resources, they can easily teach their country home students
without needing to be coming home always, except in a while for purposes of
practical, research, etc. It is also cheaper, qualitative, less risky and
convenient.
More higher education
institutions including universities are not only direly and urgently needed in
Nigeria, but also multi-national and multi-billionaire indigenous companies
like Shell, Agip, Chevron, GLO, MTN, NNPC, Dangote, etc, should give Nigerians
more universities at affordable prices and qualities, as part of their social
responsibility obligations to Nigerian citizens. Both Federal and States’
Governments in Nigeria should drastically review and upgrade criteria for
membership of higher institutions’ governing councils. Apart from making
professors and holders of doctorate degrees heads of governing councils, other
members must possess at least first university degrees or their equivalents.
Professionals, not career politicians, should head such governing councils and
membership of such councils should no longer be used as political
settlements.
To effectively manage
incessant industrial disputes in Nigeria, all the basic salaries of the leaders
and members of the industrial unions capable of downing tools in the country,
should be left intact subject to their statutory reviews. But all the
allowances with whatever names so attached or called, should be reviewed,
aggregated and codified. In the circumstance, we recommend for forensic review
of all the allowances presently demandable and payable in respect of all the
public industrial unions including ASUU, ASUP, SSANU, NLC, TUC, NMA, NUT and so
on. Such review will take into account need to remove ones that are
over-bloated and frivolous. The remaining payable allowances after such
forensic review should be cut by 30% as a sacrifice to save our economy and
resources for the capital development of our higher education. The idea of
codification of these allowances with their review periods is to prevent frivolities
and proliferation of allowances by demanding industrial unions. Government must
honour its obligations with respect to terms so contained and demand maximum
outputs from the beneficiaries.
We also strongly
recommend that the basic salaries of the 17,500 top public office holders in
Nigeria should be left intact. This is because the problem does not lie on
salaries but allowances and overheads, which are scandalous
and criminal. It is our firm recommendation that all the allowances paid
annually to these 17,500 milky Nigerians should be holistically reviewed with a
view to removing those found irrelevant such as newspaper allowance of
N1.24 Million, hardship allowance of N1.2Million, wardrope allowance
of N621, 000, recess allowance of N248, 000, accommodation allowance of N4,
96Million (there is already furniture allowance of N7, 45Million), domestic
staff allowance of N868,000(there is already personal assistance allowance of
N621,000), entertainment allowance of N828,000 and vehicle maintenance allowance
of N1,86Million( there is already motor vehicle allowance of N9,93Million).These
categories of irrelevant allowances are basically enjoyed by each of the 469
federal lawmakers in Nigeria and they are extended with minor modifications to
others included in the list of the said 17,500 milky Nigerians.
We further recommend
that the remaining allowances should be cut by at least 50% so as to save
resources for the adequate provision and maintenance of social services
including adequate funding of our tertiary education. Nigeria’s 3,500
kilometers of railways are in shambles. The 8,600 kilometers of the country’s
inland waterways are not properly developed and policed; her 22 airports are
not only too small for 170 million people, but also below international
standards. The 34,120 kilometers of federal roads are death trap, likewise the
36 States’ 34, 300 kilometers and the 776 LGAs’ 129, 580 kilometers of roads.
The 50% cut in the said allowances will fetch the Nigeria over N275Billion from
12,788 LGAs’ executives and councilors’ allowances, N136Billion from about
2,664 States’ executives, N27Billion from 469 federal lawmakers, N45Billion
from about 472 federal executives,N18Billion from 1, 152 States’
lawmakers,N8Billion from 792 States’ judges and N6,5Billion from 142 federal
judges, totaling N516Billion a year.
While security
votes should be restricted to the president and governors with
drastic downward review, such allocation to heads of all top public offices
other than governors and the president should be abolished and prohibited by
law. The estimated over 35,000 personal assistants working for the said 17,500
milky Nigerians should be trimmed down by 50% with only president, deputy
president, governors, deputy governors, senate president, deputy senate
president, speaker of the House of Reps and his deputy, Chief Justice of the
Federation, the Appeal Court President and Chief Judges of States, FCT and
Federal High Courts allowed maximum of three personal assistants other than
their constitutionally recognized aides. The scandalous and criminal overhead
expenditures in Nigeria should be cut by 50% as well.
For: International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi,
Chairman of the Board
08033601078, 08180103912
Comrade Justus Ijeoma,
Head, Publicity Desk
08037114869
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