Our universities must serve as budding centers for industrial and technological development, not just for academic excellence.
In many of our older universities, basic, academic research is almost at par with universities in advanced countries. Most of the time, except for the debilitating conditions existing in our country, our professors can hold their own in international conferences. The younger universities look up to these older ones and try, within their financial capabilities, to set up facilities within their domains for teaching and for basic research.
The federal government, and most state governments, knowing that there is definitely a correlation between technological/industrial development and education, spend their resources creating more universities. In the southern part of Nigeria today, there is probably a university in every major community.
For most of our young people today, university education has become a rite of passage to adulthood. It is assumed that with good education, they will ultimately find good jobs. The parents therefore sacrifice to send them to the best universities affordable.
But where are the jobs?
Today, when we talk about unemployment in our country, we are really talking about the lack of employment of young men who have graduated from universities and who then come back home to their parents for sustenance. In some states like mine – Ondo State – students upon graduation, simply leave the state to search for employment in other places. Ondo State, like many states that graduate students at terrific rates, experiences the most emigration of their educated young people. On a larger scale, many of the graduating students whose parents have the means simply leave the country in search for employment in foreign lands. Again, Nigeria experiences the most emigration of their educated young men than most countries on earth.
Why are there no jobs?
There are no jobs because we are applying the wrong strategies to job creation. We saddle the wrong institution, the government, with job creation. Yes, the government may have the financial resources to create some kinds of employment, it is not equipped intellectually and emotionally to create technologically oriented jobs. The people in government do not have the knowhow, the experience, and the discipline to do this. It would be regrettable if after four years, the Buhari admnistration would not have made a dent in university graduate employment. As well meaning as the president may be, he does not have the requisite qualification to create high-end jobs. It goes without saying that the people who can create engineering jobs are engineers. Those that can create chemically oriented industries would be people with training in chemistry. People who can run biological research concerns must have degrees in the life sciences. And in all cases, the entrepreneurs must have some stake in the job that they create.
In the advanced countries…
It behooves us to make a careful analysis of what happens in the advanced countries that make it possible for their graduating students to consistently have employment. In a country like the United States, which can be considered an epitome of advancement, probably not more than one or two percent of their doctoral graduates work directly for government. And not more than ten percent work in government affiliated institutions. Probably another ten percent of these people are employed in universities and other academic institutions. The rest find themselves working in one private establishment or another. All these people are engaged in a bid to create diverse goods and services. The resultant effect of their intellectual efforts results in the employment of others.
Of course, this betokens that there are research or manufacturing centers already available for these people to go. This is not the case in our country. It must also be pointed out that the quest to develop goods and services in the U.S.A. is not limited to those in the industries. Most universities' research and development efforts are directed to creating goods and services for the benefit of mankind. Thus there is a vibrant collaboration between academia and the industry.
In Nigeria, probably more than ninety five percent of our doctoral graduates are in the universities. This means that dotting the landscape, are highly qualified collection of individuals who can help in the industrialization of their immediate neighborhood, and therefore of our country but are ironically banned by some form of contract from participating in 'other activities.' If these people have some brilliant idea that they can turn into goods or services, they have to give the idea to some overseas concern by way of a research paper, patent or by physically moving themselves to those countries. Our laws basically disallow these individuals from perfecting their ideas and making money from them. This therefore debars these people from employing others. This is patently absurd. It really can be concluded that this is enslavement of the highest order. Our best and brightest are working to develop other countries while we pay for their training.
What to do
Any law banning university lecturers and professors from participating in 'extracurricular activities,' must be removed. They are archaic and retrogressive. A smart individual can equally be a professor in the university as well as a master of industry. It is understandable that a few of these professors may not show up for their employment in the universities but the benefits accruable from the conscientious ones far outweigh this problem. Let us remember that the best way to train the students technologically is by making them experience technology and not by lecturing and throwing exams at them.
All university professors and in many cases lecturers must be encouraged to establish technologically oriented research businesses where they can use their expertise in training students under them. These centers must be profit oriented – profiting them and profiting the universities to which they are attached.
A simple solution to funding a professor's project would be for the federal and state governments to make available benefits accruable to any of them wishing to take the risk when they are requested. This means that a professor with ten years in the university should be able to access his own retirement benefits while still in the institution, and a loan of ten to twenty million naira to pursue a worthwhile project that will benefit him, the state and the nation. Once a professor or a lecturer in a state university can prove, to the satisfaction of the university authorities, that he has a well researched idea that will benefit the state and employ people, and that he is willing to risk his own accrued benefits, money should be made available to him to pursue his goal.
Let it be understood that the scheme as envisaged is not meant to facilitate the establishment of mom and pop stores. If a university or the state has a stake in a business, it must be monitored by the university since it is logically an extension of the university till the pioneer of such a scheme repays the university fully. Such an establishment must be based on the development of a well researched product, idea or industrial process, and seen to add value to the university and the state. It must be capable of providing meaningful employment to graduates while developing the skills of those still in school. It must be profitable and capable of returning value on investment.
Rapid industrialization in a nation can only come about by empowering those who have the intellectual capacity to engage in it. Let us use what we have to get what we want.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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