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From: standithlord jahsown <sjahsown@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:37:17 +0100
To: <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
Subject: prof olukotun's column
WHAT OUR PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES CAN LEARN FROM PRIVATE ONES
-Ayo Olukotun
Private universities have become in the last decade an influential
fixture of our educational landscape. Unplanned expansion of public
universities, still the main players has deepened the crisis of
underfunding and of dysfunction manifested in frequent disruptions of
the calendar, as a result of which private universities have begun to
look like islands of refuge in a turbulent sea. Parents including
lecturers in public universities are increasingly accessing the
auspices of the private universities with their stable calendar to
educate their wards.
Let us recognize however that it doesn't say much for private
universities that they are expanding by default of a derelict state,
unable to provide minimal services to helpless citizens. In other
words, to be worthier, our private universities must do more than
merely occupy the space vacated by a state that has reneged on the
social contract and become attractive in their own rights.
In the United States for example, private universities such as those
of Harvard, Yale and Princeton dominate front positions in
international league tables. This means that citizens can exercise the
power of choice between more expensive but top rated private
universities and cheaper universities funded by public money, most of
which are efficient though they are not in the top league. This is an
entirely different architecture from what we have in Nigeria where
there is little to choose between up and coming private universities,
lacking the resources and visage of established institutions and the
older public universities caught in a double whammy of serial unrest
and eroding budgets.
This is the context which has forced the exodus abroad of Nigerian
undergraduates from privileged backgrounds to overseas universities.
It should be noted that budgetary cuts in higher education are not
limited to Nigeria but are a global trend and university
administrators find themselves increasingly responding to financial
jolts through inventive funding devices. That notwithstanding and
within the constraining ambience of Nigerian higher education there is
the possibility that our public universities can nudge upwards if they
learn some lessons from certain aspects of the culture of our private
universities. Before getting into that however, I digress to offer a
short take.
The current dust thrown up by the succession controversy at the
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife will have to clear a little before
a sober and magisterial assessment can be made of the tenure of the
tenth Vice Chancellor, Prof Bamitale Omole whose tenure expired on
Thursday. As known, the governing council of the university on June 6,
announced the appointment as eleventh Vice Chancellor of Prof. Ayobami
Salami, currently Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) While the Academic
Staff Union of Universities has publicly endorsed the new Vice
Chancellor, two nonacademic unions have continued to protest the
appointment and in a manner which forced the authorities to close down
the university on Thursday. It is a paradox that none of the members
of the protesting unions are ever made vice chancellors and are
therefore not major stakeholders in such appointments. But in the
turbulent clime of OAU which often punctuates its renown, proxy wars
and distemper are often part of the territory. There is hardly any
vice chancellor that has left office without one tremor or the other
and Omole who is accused of "imposing" a candidate has not been an
exception.
When the noise of battle retreats however, history, this writer
believes will be kind to Omole who made remarkable strides in the
areas of infrastructural renewal and of turning the university into a
smart city, by expanding internet penetration and availability on
campus; as well as upgrading academic research. He also struggled at
the limits to safeguard the academic calendar from tempestuous and
sometimes irascible outbursts that often sentence our universities to
extended closure.
As for Salami who takes over as Vice Chancellor today, he has borne
the brunt of transition conflicts which have prevented several from
assessing him on his own impressive steam. Interestingly, at 52 he is
the youngest academic to be appointed to that office in Ife; on
grounds of merit, he has the advantage of being a top flight scholar
who has used international connections to attract grants to the
university. He has also held notable positions including Secretary of
ASSU and Director of the institute of Ecology. Obviously, for salami
to achieve his articulated ten point agenda set around "Technovation"
and the renewal of academic greatness, he must be able to reach out
across opposing divides as well as come up with intensive fund raising
strategies in an era of declining budgets.
To go back to the main discourse, our public universities can borrow
from the private ones a student-centered learning culture which
prioritizes teaching and detailed attention to the needs of students.
For example, the interesting practice whereby lecturers in private
universities are expected to submit at the beginning of each semester
instructional materials replete with course outlines, summaries of
lecture notes has helped to focus attention on the preparation,
content and quality of instruction. It also makes it possible to see
the extent to which lecturers are updating and keeping abreast of
developments in their disciplines. True, the larger students'
population in public universities sometimes militates against detailed
attention to students; it should be possible however to experiment
with Oxford style tutorial classes which were once features of
instruction in the older universities.
The other lesson which our public universities can usefully learn from
their younger cousins concerns the speed of decision making, timelines
and policy implementation. While the committee system is an insurance
against arbitrary power, it sometimes leads to the unfortunate
consequence of bogging important decisions down in endless rounds of
meetings. In other words it should be possible to turn around the
managerial culture of our public universities while preserving the
verification essence of their administrative procedures.
Importantly, if our public universities are not to be consigned to
obsolescence, they must somehow be able both to generate more
resources than they currently do as well as maximize them, by cutting
waste for enhanced productivity. Charging modest fees is an often
canvased but politically explosive option because of an ingrained
culture of free or virtually free public education. However this
writer believes that if the public is sensitized ahead of marginal
increases and not ambushed by sudden jumps in fees, Nigerians will be
willing, as they already do, to pay more to get better education.
One sore point concerns the instability of academic calendars in our
public universities with the University of Ilorin being an exception
because of its success even if controversial, in taming the power of
militant unions. As a former President of the Obafemi Awolowo
Students' Union myself, I am reluctant to criticize students and
workers militancy. But as Prof. Niyi Akinnaso reminded us in The Punch
on Tuesday, militancy must not be pursued to the point where it
denatures or imperils the system. This of course implies that
management itself should be proactive while government, the
proprietors should become more sensitive to the need to safe guard the
sanctity of university calendars.
Our universities will become sounder to the extent that there is
better cross-fertilization between the public and private ones.
-Ayo Olukotun
Private universities have become in the last decade an influential
fixture of our educational landscape. Unplanned expansion of public
universities, still the main players has deepened the crisis of
underfunding and of dysfunction manifested in frequent disruptions of
the calendar, as a result of which private universities have begun to
look like islands of refuge in a turbulent sea. Parents including
lecturers in public universities are increasingly accessing the
auspices of the private universities with their stable calendar to
educate their wards.
Let us recognize however that it doesn't say much for private
universities that they are expanding by default of a derelict state,
unable to provide minimal services to helpless citizens. In other
words, to be worthier, our private universities must do more than
merely occupy the space vacated by a state that has reneged on the
social contract and become attractive in their own rights.
In the United States for example, private universities such as those
of Harvard, Yale and Princeton dominate front positions in
international league tables. This means that citizens can exercise the
power of choice between more expensive but top rated private
universities and cheaper universities funded by public money, most of
which are efficient though they are not in the top league. This is an
entirely different architecture from what we have in Nigeria where
there is little to choose between up and coming private universities,
lacking the resources and visage of established institutions and the
older public universities caught in a double whammy of serial unrest
and eroding budgets.
This is the context which has forced the exodus abroad of Nigerian
undergraduates from privileged backgrounds to overseas universities.
It should be noted that budgetary cuts in higher education are not
limited to Nigeria but are a global trend and university
administrators find themselves increasingly responding to financial
jolts through inventive funding devices. That notwithstanding and
within the constraining ambience of Nigerian higher education there is
the possibility that our public universities can nudge upwards if they
learn some lessons from certain aspects of the culture of our private
universities. Before getting into that however, I digress to offer a
short take.
The current dust thrown up by the succession controversy at the
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife will have to clear a little before
a sober and magisterial assessment can be made of the tenure of the
tenth Vice Chancellor, Prof Bamitale Omole whose tenure expired on
Thursday. As known, the governing council of the university on June 6,
announced the appointment as eleventh Vice Chancellor of Prof. Ayobami
Salami, currently Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) While the Academic
Staff Union of Universities has publicly endorsed the new Vice
Chancellor, two nonacademic unions have continued to protest the
appointment and in a manner which forced the authorities to close down
the university on Thursday. It is a paradox that none of the members
of the protesting unions are ever made vice chancellors and are
therefore not major stakeholders in such appointments. But in the
turbulent clime of OAU which often punctuates its renown, proxy wars
and distemper are often part of the territory. There is hardly any
vice chancellor that has left office without one tremor or the other
and Omole who is accused of "imposing" a candidate has not been an
exception.
When the noise of battle retreats however, history, this writer
believes will be kind to Omole who made remarkable strides in the
areas of infrastructural renewal and of turning the university into a
smart city, by expanding internet penetration and availability on
campus; as well as upgrading academic research. He also struggled at
the limits to safeguard the academic calendar from tempestuous and
sometimes irascible outbursts that often sentence our universities to
extended closure.
As for Salami who takes over as Vice Chancellor today, he has borne
the brunt of transition conflicts which have prevented several from
assessing him on his own impressive steam. Interestingly, at 52 he is
the youngest academic to be appointed to that office in Ife; on
grounds of merit, he has the advantage of being a top flight scholar
who has used international connections to attract grants to the
university. He has also held notable positions including Secretary of
ASSU and Director of the institute of Ecology. Obviously, for salami
to achieve his articulated ten point agenda set around "Technovation"
and the renewal of academic greatness, he must be able to reach out
across opposing divides as well as come up with intensive fund raising
strategies in an era of declining budgets.
To go back to the main discourse, our public universities can borrow
from the private ones a student-centered learning culture which
prioritizes teaching and detailed attention to the needs of students.
For example, the interesting practice whereby lecturers in private
universities are expected to submit at the beginning of each semester
instructional materials replete with course outlines, summaries of
lecture notes has helped to focus attention on the preparation,
content and quality of instruction. It also makes it possible to see
the extent to which lecturers are updating and keeping abreast of
developments in their disciplines. True, the larger students'
population in public universities sometimes militates against detailed
attention to students; it should be possible however to experiment
with Oxford style tutorial classes which were once features of
instruction in the older universities.
The other lesson which our public universities can usefully learn from
their younger cousins concerns the speed of decision making, timelines
and policy implementation. While the committee system is an insurance
against arbitrary power, it sometimes leads to the unfortunate
consequence of bogging important decisions down in endless rounds of
meetings. In other words it should be possible to turn around the
managerial culture of our public universities while preserving the
verification essence of their administrative procedures.
Importantly, if our public universities are not to be consigned to
obsolescence, they must somehow be able both to generate more
resources than they currently do as well as maximize them, by cutting
waste for enhanced productivity. Charging modest fees is an often
canvased but politically explosive option because of an ingrained
culture of free or virtually free public education. However this
writer believes that if the public is sensitized ahead of marginal
increases and not ambushed by sudden jumps in fees, Nigerians will be
willing, as they already do, to pay more to get better education.
One sore point concerns the instability of academic calendars in our
public universities with the University of Ilorin being an exception
because of its success even if controversial, in taming the power of
militant unions. As a former President of the Obafemi Awolowo
Students' Union myself, I am reluctant to criticize students and
workers militancy. But as Prof. Niyi Akinnaso reminded us in The Punch
on Tuesday, militancy must not be pursued to the point where it
denatures or imperils the system. This of course implies that
management itself should be proactive while government, the
proprietors should become more sensitive to the need to safe guard the
sanctity of university calendars.
Our universities will become sounder to the extent that there is
better cross-fertilization between the public and private ones.
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