Thank you prof. This is is quite informative. I hope our government will accept the recommendations and do the needful.
On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:38 AM, ayo_olukotun via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
--Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 16:54:15 +0100ReplyTo: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>Subject: AGENDA FOR REPOSITIONING OUR UNIVERSITIESAGENDA FOR REPOSITIONING OUR UNIVERSITIESAyo OlukotunAs usual, several topics are clamouring for informed analysis. The export of 'stomach infrastructure' to Adamawa state where, following a shabby and politically orchestrated impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako, Ahmadu Fintiri, Acting Governor promised workers a new welfare package.Do you want to look at the possible mystical significance of so many of our star writers and newspaper administrators who were born between July 12 and July 17. They are Henry Odukomaiya - July 12, Ajibola Ogunsola - July 14, Wole Soyinka – July 13 and Olatunji Dare - July 17. Who says there is no wisdom in studying the stars after all?But let's leave these fascinating topics for another day and consider the conference a fortnight ago in Abuja of the Committee of Pro-chancellors of Nigerian Federal Universities around the theme "Repositioning Nigerian Public Universities for Global Competitiveness in the 21st Century." True, all stakeholders in the university system are important; it can be reasonably inferred however that Pro-Chancellors who represent the Visitor to the universities have bigger stakes than others, hence the importance of their deliberations.It is interesting that the Pro-Chancellors and the paper presenters did not minimize the decay in the system illustrated for example by a situation where no Nigerian university is currently ranked among the first 20 best universities in Africa. That is not all. A paper entitled, 'The Rot in Nigerian Public Universities and the Reformative Agenda' by Professor Ibikunle Tijani captured the deplorable state of our universities by allusion to growing corruption. Argued Tijani: "The rot in our public universities in Nigeria demand a rebirth partly because of a parent that will rather bribe, date or sleep with the head of department, the admission officer as a pathway to securing the future of her chid to university administrator that will demand recharge cards for writing a letter of recommendation for his or her students." This is of course another way of saying that the universities reflect the moral torpor of the larger society and occasionally outpaces it. Of course, universities are necessarily part of the wider society even though in their best incarnations their separation from the bustle of the city envisages them as rising above it.The interesting paper by Professor Banji Oyeyinka of the UN-Habitat makes clear from another perspective that the production of knowledge and of innovation depends crucially on the presence and nurture of what he called knowledge base or a national scientific infrastructure. This speaks to the cluster of information input, knowledge and capabilities that individuals can draw upon in their attempt to innovate. From this angle, Nigeria's infrastructural woes as well as the deficiencies of support facilities for research and innovation partly explain why it is falling off the global knowledge map. This is related to the persistent underfunding of higher education side by side with the explosion in the number of universities and in the population of students. Universities most regrettably have come to be viewed as amenities to be allocated according to the logic of Federal Character and the distributive ethos of Nigerian politics. This spreads thin resources which were in the first place pitifully inadequate with expectedly catastrophic results.The Pro-Chancellors lament in this respect that public universities are "grossly underfunded, severely limited in their sources of funding but restrained from charging tuition fees all of which stagnate their growth and undermine their competiveness." For obvious reasons the issue of increasing tuition fees has remained a tinderbox which neither the Federal government or university administrators are not inclined to toy with. However, in the absence of innovative fund raising strategies it may be time for the federal government to explore some of the options that cash-trapped state governments were compelled to consider. For example, the Ekiti state government a few years back was forced by its shoestring budget to close down two of its universities in order to focus attention on one Mega University. In other words, there is little sense in multiplying poorly funded universities in the name of federal character if the national goal is to enter the global knowledge economy.Interesting too, is the presentation by Professor Jonas Sawyerr who dealt with international accreditation and the employability of our graduates. Sawyerr argues that turning out graduates whose purview is the international job market requires that Nigeria links up with international quality assurance organisations and protocols such as the Bologna Accord which has created a European Higher Education area to which some African countries are aligned. He mentions too the interesting case of South Africa which is a signatory to such protocols as the Washington Accord, the Dublin Accord and the Sydney Accord. South Africa's hook-up to the Washington Accord for example, is according to the author viewed as a significant development which "confirms that engineering degree programs in South Africa that have been accredited by ECSA are recognised as meeting international standard and are accepted by the Engineering body of the other signatory countries." This is another way of saying that Nigerian universities if they must become globally competitive must go beyond the often touted NUC benchmarks and locate the quality of their degrees within the international mainstream. Another way of indexing the quality of our degrees globally is to revive the concept of the year abroad in which undergraduates of our universities spend at least a semester in an overseas country to improve their skills through some cost sharing arrangement.On the employability of graduates, an issue that runs through several papers, Sawyerr maintains that there is need to factor the perspectives of employers of labour into curriculum design and undergraduate training. This would constitute a much needed complement to the current important emphasis on entrepreneurship training in which undergraduates are expected to pick up skills which can be put to the service of self employment in the shrinking job market. Dwindling teachers' effectiveness and the erosion of teaching standards came up on agenda. It was suggested for example, that our universities must pay more attention to the enhancement of teaching standards in which as Tijani puts it: lecturers would strive to "mentor students and contribute to their intellectual growth" as well as create mechanisms for integrating feedback from students into their compass.A fascinating paper by Are Afe Babalola, former Pro-chancellor of the University of Lagos and founder of a private university addressed itself to university autonomy and good governance. Babalola maintains that academic freedom defined as substantive independence and procedural governance will fast track the ascent of Nigerian universities to global standards. The sticky point however is whether public universities can be substantively autonomous outside of a greater measure of financial independence. In this connection, the committee of Pro-Chancellors, enjoined the universities to explore new sources of funding such as grants, endowments from alumni as well as research for industries. It should be noted that although hollowed out budgets for universities are a worldwide trend universities in the west have employed endowments and contributions from their alumni as absorbers for the shock of budgetary downturn.Hopefully, the pedigree of the committee will ensure that most of its carefully thought out recommendations become national policies.Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236
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