Educational Feats of Nigerians in Diaspora: Food for Thoughts III

Educational Feats of Nigerians in Diaspora: Food for Thoughts III

The issue of Poor Physical infrastructure in most of the public tertiary Institutions of learning was presented in the last week article. Classrooms, lecture theatres and laboratories in most universities colleges and polytechnics are still jam-packed with students. Equipment and consumables are grossly lacking, inadequate or outdated; Kerosene stoves are still being used as Bunsen burners in some laboratories. Students' Practical for Engineering and related disciplines takes place under zinc sheds and trees. This issue is certainly a serious impediment to teaching and learning in our educational institutions. Governments at local, state and federal levels have to wake up from their slumber to squarely address the poor physical infrastructure in our tertiary institutions of learning to enable Nigerians realize their potentials.

2. Poor Research Funding and lack of research direction; another internal factor, militating against effective teaching in these citadel centres of learning is poor funding to research. More than 70% of the undergraduate and postgraduate students’ research works in Nigeria are funded by the students themselves. Why should research work be funded by the researcher? Society is the ultimate user of a research result and should therefore pay for the research. With school fees charged at postgraduate level and other related expenses, students find it difficult to fund their research works and thus, produce poor research result. This make students to look for a research topic requiring minimum cost, in the process, our research works loss direction. In Nigeria, it is common to find several unrelated research works in a single Department going on at same time, no synergy. Research works are yet to occupy their rightful place in our developmental effort as a nation; for instance, in the annual budget, research works in the Research Institutes are placed under capital projects, yet less than 50 % of the approved funds for capital projects are released to the Institutes nationwide. This has been happening in the last 7 years. With this scenario, how can scientists conduct good research for our national development when about 50% of the research funds are released?  The key to the development of Nigeria in the 21^st century lies in its ability to produce applied and theoretical knowledge in science and technology through good research and development. Nevertheless, there are pockets of research works with promising results. These are researches funded by TETFUND and other donor agencies, which are limited and only accessible to few researchers. There has to be a deliberate government policy to involve private sector in funding of research in our tertiary Institutions.

3. Poor welfare packages to Students; majority of students in the tertiary institutions enjoy limited health services, sporting facilities and hostel accommodation. As rightly observed by Needs Assessment committee, "The provision of decent hostel accommodation to at least 50% of the student population in any residential (public owned) university is proving to be an uphill task for Nigerian universities. There has been, over the last two decades, an upsurge of students’ population in almost all Nigerian universities but there was no commensurate improvement of accommodation and other student services.  Consequently, there is a lot of pressure on the available accommodation facilities. As a result, there is rapid deterioration of hostel facilities, overcrowding and undue congestion in rooms, overstretched lavatory and laundry facilities, poor sanitation, etc". Unfortunately, this situation is still prevailing as many students reside off campus in private accommodation, which is a constraint to a good learning environment. It is the responsibility of the government, being the sole owner of these institutions of learning to address these services to make the environment conducive for teaching and learning.

4. Perennial Labour industrial action: industrial actions perennially embarked by the different labour unions in our tertiary institutions of learning contribute to unfavourable condition for the progress of education in Nigeria. Although, the previous strikes embarked by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were necessary and such actions were responsible for making government to positive interventions in the sector. Without ASUU persistent struggles, the university system would totally collapsed and many Nigerians would not be taking their children to public universities, just like what is happening to LEA primary schools across the nation. Currently, ASUU has all the reasons to resume its suspended strike but for the patriotism of members and leadership; and clear understanding of the nation economic bad situation. For instance, the issue of the unpaid Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) is likely to make the academic and non -academic staff restive across the nation, if nothing is done as soon as possible. ASUU in its communiqué issued at the end of 19^th National Delegates Conference between 6^th and 8^th May held at the University of Uyo stated that “Federal and State governments failed to pay the balance of EAA, as in the 2009 agreement and the 2013 MoU, despite numerous letters of reminder to the appropriate authorities in the Ministry, National Assembly and the Presidency”.  ASUU further warned on the consequences of government failure to implement the agreement/MoU; “The consequences of the violation of the agreement and MoU is that the process of revitalizing Nigerian universities is failing. Although the Federal government should have released N495 billion for 2014, 2015 and first quarter of 2016 of the agreed 1.3 trillion Needs Assessment Intervention Fund (NAIF) for revitalization of public universities, no money up till now has been released as agreed in 2013 MoU after the initial release of 200 billion for 2013”. EAA is one of the many issues that are yet to be fully implemented as contained in the MoU signed between ASUU and Federal government in 2013. While we are fervently praying not have another cycle of strike in our university system, but the earlier these issues are adequately addressed the better for the educational system.   

Space limitation cannot allow me to serialize all the internal factors militating against Nigerians achieving their potentials in Nigeria while pursuing their educational careers. However, these internal factors are directly related to the external factors. The most pertinent among the external factors is the underfunding of educational system in Nigeria.

Gross underfunding of education over the last decade has been largely responsible of the dilapidating condition and decade of the educational system. How grossly was Nigerian educational system underfunded? One of the ace columnists brilliantly captured the situation in his weekly column on 15^th November, 2013. He wrote “with its 129 universities, 100-odd polytechnics and 85 colleges of education and a very I-don’t-care attitude to higher education, Nigeria spends less than 1 per cent of its Gross National Income [0.85% to be precise]; while four of its smaller English-speaking African compatriot-states spend multiples of that: Ghana [2.85%], Egypt [3.9%], Zimbabwe [5.4%] and South Africa [7%]. And while the percentage of education expenditure to total national expenditure in Nigeria is a paltry 8.4%, South Africa spends 20%, Morocco spends 26.4%, Botswana 25.6% and French-speaking Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire spend 25.6% and 21.5% respectively”. Although, Nigeria had the opportunity to change this trend up to the middle of last year, 2015 when crude oil was selling at over 100 USD per barrel and Nigeria was trading over 2 million barrels a day, yet the generated funds were not invested in education. Today, Nigeria earns less than half of what it was earning 15 months ago from the sales of oil, which unfortunately is the mainstay of the economy. This has made it very difficult for Nigeria to make a drastic change and improve the educational system despite the concerted effort being made by the current Nigerian leadership.

Consequently, the 2016 budget does not provide the expected hope to the managers of the university system. ASUU cried out the implication of the 2016 budget allocation to the education sector in its recent communiqué published this week. ASUU said “the 2016 budget and allocation to education; the union took steps to draw the attention of the government to the inadequacies in the allocation in the controversial 2016 budget, which came to a meagre 8 % of the total budget. The allocation negates the spirit and letters of the FGN-ASUU agreement of 2009, where government agreed to progressively increase budgetary allocation to 26% as recommended by UNESCO. The allocation also undermines the avowed promise of the current government to provide free higher education in the area of science and technology as a way of scaling up the country’s development process”. It is therefore pertinent that government should double the funds for education sector with a clear strategy for prudent use of such funds.

In conclusion, this 3 – parts article has shown that the winning of 16 awards out of a total of 27 awards by Nigerians in Howard University, Washington D.C, USA was a zenith of Nigerian performance educationally, a feat no country has achieved to the best of knowledge. That, providing a favourable environment, motivation and right leadership, Nigerians can excels in all facets of national development. There are many unknown Desayo Ajisegiris, Philip Emeagwalis, Sarki Abba Abdulkadir, Jelanis here in Nigeria but the situation (internal and external factors) made them to be unknown heroes with a huge and unquantifiable loss to the nation. Can President Buhari change the trend and elevate educational sector to a higher position of success? While we are fervently praying for his government to succeed, the whole saga is a food for thought (concluded)