July 7, 2009
By ‘Soga Sofola
THERE has been and there will always be, in the nearest future, the question of the number of placements for university admission of qualified students in Nigeria. Various statistics have been given on the admission/application ratio, based on JAMB cut-off of 200 or thereabout (out of 400 marks). One such figure is that at the last exercise (2008/2009 session), about 153,000 out of 1,050,000 “qualified students representing about 15 per cent only, gained admission into the universities.
The number admitted is based on the carrying capacity of the universities and this is based on the number of lecturers which then determines the lecturer: student ratio, which in turn determines the admission number. These are standard criteria that are used to fix admission quotas in the universities. In an attempt to address this low transition rate for several students to universities, there has been the clamour for the establishment of more universities. So far there has been a high increase in the number of Universities which now number about 95 made up of 27 Federal universities, 34 state universities and 34 private universities as at the NUC release of February, 2009. Since then a couple more have been registered. Ordinarily, this scenario of increased number of universities is expected to have impacted positively on the transition rate of students into the universities. It is therefore obvious that more universities will need to be established. The question however is that what human resources/academic teachers does the system have to carry out this task of increase in students’ intake. The answer is that the system is grossly inadequate to cater for this exercise, especially if our goal is the production of adequately trained students, and not the present output of ‘quarter’ baked graduates. The entire university system has about 28,000 academic staff, running about 3000 approved programmes with over one million cumulative number of students. Of the academic staff, quite a number do not have the qualification that is required to be a university lecturer i.e. Ph.D degree. The unfortunate implication of this is that the few available Ph.D lecturers who are the ones that are de facto university teachers, are now being put in charge of a disproportionately large number of students, further reducing the quality of graduates that are being produced. The import of this is that the call for more universities, though desirable, cannot address adequately the training needs of the students and hence National development as expected of graduate/university education. This is amply illustrated in the NUC Book on “Labour Expectation of Nigerian Graduates” which describes the inadequacies of graduates produced within the local system vis-ˆ-vis their foreign counterparts. This is mainly because the adequate number of qualified teachers/lecturers is not being trained to man the system. It is like buying more aircraft without the adequate number of pilots to fly them. There is no way that the desirable expansion for access to university education can succeed until the issue of adequate human resources is seriously addressed. It is therefore imperative that a “Marshall Plan” for the production of Ph.Ds must be embarked upon. This can be achieved – e.g. through local and foreign production. Local production of Ph.Ds should be scaled up by supporting institutions that train Doctorate students particularly the first and second generation state and Federal Universities. As of now the quantity produced is low compared with national needs. The reasons are not far fetched and these are due mainly to inadequate funding, inadequate/obsolete equipment for researches as well as low quantum of research-oriented supervisors among others. These observations have resulted from decades’ long neglect and short-sightedness in making adequate plans for university expansion vis-ˆ-vis the roll out of more secondary schools in the wake of the 6-3-3-4 (or new 9-3-4) systems and the attendant production of more secondary schools leavers. This has also been compounded by the less than enthusiastic willingness of school leavers to attend other higher institutions like polytechnics and colleges of education. The country must therefore be prepared to commit funds to training by making available funding to the trainers i.e. Ph.D supervisor. This should be like, for instance, each time you train a Ph.D graduate you get a personnel grant as honorarium, for this. Most universities in Europe and the USA provide research grants to train graduate students which include personnel grants/honoraria for the supervisor/advisor. If this is done some experienced researchers can be encouraged to take on more Ph.D supervision. Secondly, in our laboratories, most of the equipment are either obsolete or inadequate. There is no way that quality research can be carried out under these conditions. The proposed “Marshall Plan” must include massive investments in modernisation of research equipment and if these are done, the output and quality of Ph.D graduants will be increased. Even then, this local intervention will still be inadequate in terms of the number produced. To obviate this, there must also be complimentary training of doctorate students in overseas institutions, paid for by the government. One suggestion is to set out a sizeable proportion of ETF funds towards this support. This is now being done but must be expanded and be well structured. In addition, Post-graduate students must be supported with funds during their training programme so that the best students, who should undertake graduate programmes, are retained rather than being lured into more lucrative but inappropriate jobs such as First Class Graduates, Doctors or Engineers ending up in banks and oil companies. The long grammar of all this presentation is to emphasise once again that we cannot qualitatively expand university access without the production of the teachers, with Ph.D’s, who will run the programmes. Another area that should be looked into is to do an audit of polytechnics and convert the ones with some acceptable standard of competence into universities. This was carried out in the United Kingdom in the 90s when several polytechnics became universities and so were able to increase undergraduate intake. This idea was to be put in place in this country during the period of one of the past Ministers of Education (to involve, for example, Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic), but this could not be achieved as the idea ended with the short term of the Madam Minister. However in carrying out this conversion, these polytechnics can be assisted by expanding Ph.D enrolment of their current staff as well as employing additional staff with Doctoral status so as to tap into this doable suggestion. In conclusion, we cannot increase university intake despite the large number of universities, because we do not have enough qualified manpower to do so, period!
Sofola is Professor of Physiology, College of Medicine, UNILAG and Currently Acting Vice-Chancellor, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye
THERE has been and there will always be, in the nearest future, the question of the number of placements for university admission of qualified students in Nigeria. Various statistics have been given on the admission/application ratio, based on JAMB cut-off of 200 or thereabout (out of 400 marks). One such figure is that at the last exercise (2008/2009 session), about 153,000 out of 1,050,000 “qualified students representing about 15 per cent only, gained admission into the universities.
The number admitted is based on the carrying capacity of the universities and this is based on the number of lecturers which then determines the lecturer: student ratio, which in turn determines the admission number. These are standard criteria that are used to fix admission quotas in the universities. In an attempt to address this low transition rate for several students to universities, there has been the clamour for the establishment of more universities. So far there has been a high increase in the number of Universities which now number about 95 made up of 27 Federal universities, 34 state universities and 34 private universities as at the NUC release of February, 2009. Since then a couple more have been registered. Ordinarily, this scenario of increased number of universities is expected to have impacted positively on the transition rate of students into the universities. It is therefore obvious that more universities will need to be established. The question however is that what human resources/academic teachers does the system have to carry out this task of increase in students’ intake. The answer is that the system is grossly inadequate to cater for this exercise, especially if our goal is the production of adequately trained students, and not the present output of ‘quarter’ baked graduates. The entire university system has about 28,000 academic staff, running about 3000 approved programmes with over one million cumulative number of students. Of the academic staff, quite a number do not have the qualification that is required to be a university lecturer i.e. Ph.D degree. The unfortunate implication of this is that the few available Ph.D lecturers who are the ones that are de facto university teachers, are now being put in charge of a disproportionately large number of students, further reducing the quality of graduates that are being produced. The import of this is that the call for more universities, though desirable, cannot address adequately the training needs of the students and hence National development as expected of graduate/university education. This is amply illustrated in the NUC Book on “Labour Expectation of Nigerian Graduates” which describes the inadequacies of graduates produced within the local system vis-ˆ-vis their foreign counterparts. This is mainly because the adequate number of qualified teachers/lecturers is not being trained to man the system. It is like buying more aircraft without the adequate number of pilots to fly them. There is no way that the desirable expansion for access to university education can succeed until the issue of adequate human resources is seriously addressed. It is therefore imperative that a “Marshall Plan” for the production of Ph.Ds must be embarked upon. This can be achieved – e.g. through local and foreign production. Local production of Ph.Ds should be scaled up by supporting institutions that train Doctorate students particularly the first and second generation state and Federal Universities. As of now the quantity produced is low compared with national needs. The reasons are not far fetched and these are due mainly to inadequate funding, inadequate/obsolete equipment for researches as well as low quantum of research-oriented supervisors among others. These observations have resulted from decades’ long neglect and short-sightedness in making adequate plans for university expansion vis-ˆ-vis the roll out of more secondary schools in the wake of the 6-3-3-4 (or new 9-3-4) systems and the attendant production of more secondary schools leavers. This has also been compounded by the less than enthusiastic willingness of school leavers to attend other higher institutions like polytechnics and colleges of education. The country must therefore be prepared to commit funds to training by making available funding to the trainers i.e. Ph.D supervisor. This should be like, for instance, each time you train a Ph.D graduate you get a personnel grant as honorarium, for this. Most universities in Europe and the USA provide research grants to train graduate students which include personnel grants/honoraria for the supervisor/advisor. If this is done some experienced researchers can be encouraged to take on more Ph.D supervision. Secondly, in our laboratories, most of the equipment are either obsolete or inadequate. There is no way that quality research can be carried out under these conditions. The proposed “Marshall Plan” must include massive investments in modernisation of research equipment and if these are done, the output and quality of Ph.D graduants will be increased. Even then, this local intervention will still be inadequate in terms of the number produced. To obviate this, there must also be complimentary training of doctorate students in overseas institutions, paid for by the government. One suggestion is to set out a sizeable proportion of ETF funds towards this support. This is now being done but must be expanded and be well structured. In addition, Post-graduate students must be supported with funds during their training programme so that the best students, who should undertake graduate programmes, are retained rather than being lured into more lucrative but inappropriate jobs such as First Class Graduates, Doctors or Engineers ending up in banks and oil companies. The long grammar of all this presentation is to emphasise once again that we cannot qualitatively expand university access without the production of the teachers, with Ph.D’s, who will run the programmes. Another area that should be looked into is to do an audit of polytechnics and convert the ones with some acceptable standard of competence into universities. This was carried out in the United Kingdom in the 90s when several polytechnics became universities and so were able to increase undergraduate intake. This idea was to be put in place in this country during the period of one of the past Ministers of Education (to involve, for example, Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic), but this could not be achieved as the idea ended with the short term of the Madam Minister. However in carrying out this conversion, these polytechnics can be assisted by expanding Ph.D enrolment of their current staff as well as employing additional staff with Doctoral status so as to tap into this doable suggestion. In conclusion, we cannot increase university intake despite the large number of universities, because we do not have enough qualified manpower to do so, period!
Sofola is Professor of Physiology, College of Medicine, UNILAG and Currently Acting Vice-Chancellor, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye
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