Before the Mega Varsities Authur; Professor. Tosanwumi Otokunefo (ALPHA EDUCATION FOUNDATION)

The endorsement of the recommendations of the Peter Obi led Technical committee on

the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities (CNANU) by the National Economic

Council (NEC) was the high point of the meeting on Thursday the 25th of April 2013. The

technical committee had recommended that six federal universities, one in each geo-

political zone be upgraded to the status of mega institutions capable of absorbing

between 150,000 and 200,000 students. Governor Obi said then that the upgrade of

the designated universities would assist in clearing the backlog of students seeking

admission into Nigerian universities. President Goodluck Jonathan had earlier expressed

grave concern about the growing number of applicants estimated at about 1.5 million in

the last three years, who are unable to secure a place in the Nigerian university system.

This appears to be the single most important factor behind the far reaching decision to

create six mega universities in the country.

The question that must be satisfactorily answered before the rush to create these mega

universities is, how many of the applicants are actually qualified for admission into

Nigerian universities in the first place. In order to secure admission into the university, a

candidate must pass three sets of examination of which the Senior School Certificate

Examination (SSCE) is the most fundamental.

A prospective candidate must obtain five credits in the senior school certificate

examination including English and mathematics in order to qualify for admission.

Information from the Nigerian national office of the West African Examination Council

indicated that only a fraction of the candidates, 649,156 out of the 1,672,224 that sat

for the examination in 2012 secured the minimum requirements for admission, that is,

excluding the requirements for appropriateness of subject combination for the desired

course. On the long run, probably not more than 500,000 candidates may possess the

SSCE requirements for admission into specific courses in the university system.

If things are done properly without sentiments, only candidates who possess the

minimum SSCE requirements should be permitted to sit for the unified tertiary

matriculation examination. Currently, there appears to be an acute shortage of the

political will to do the right thing.

Secondly, the Nigerian university system is just one of the tertiary educational systems

in the country, with the polytechnics and colleges of education constituting the others.

The polytechnics and the colleges of education provide the middle level manpower

needs for the nations industries and may account for as much as 40 percent of the

workers. These other tertiary institutions have been neglected and relegated to the

background in the scheme of things in the nation’s developmental plans to the extent

that in 2010, only 45,140 candidates indicated preference for the mono/polytechnics

and colleges of education (MPCE) as against 1,330,531 for the universities.

It must be emphasized that there are greater employment potentials for graduates of

the MPCE institutions in the job market than for university graduates. The current

dilemma of the Nigerian primary school system stems from the huge shortfall in the

number of National Certificate of Education (NCE) holders who constitute the bulk of

the teaching staff. In many states of the federation, secondary school certificate holders

and secondary school dropouts are actively involved in teaching because of the paucity

of qualified personnel. The same is true for many of our industries where polytechnic

graduates are needed but are often not available. We must strengthen the

mono/polytechnics and colleges of education in terms of investment and expansion of

facilities to absorb more secondary school leavers, and produce the manpower we

need.

The existing universities are currently producing graduates who are considered

unemployable and on the long run unemployed. These half-baked products are the raw

materials for the gang of armed robbers and kidnappers that are currently terrorizing

the nation. The needs assessment report on the state of the Nigerian university system

and the current ASUU demand for substantial increase in funding has only highlighted

the degree of decay in the system.

With the current state of affairs in the university education system, the most logical

thing to do is to provide fund for essential infrastructure, equipment and to train the

requisite manpower in order to improve on the quality of her products. This cannot

happen overnight. Furthermore, it will be imperative to improve on the quality of

graduates of our secondary schools through improvement in the quality of teachers and

reduction in the level of examination malpractice which has become a great hindrance

to learning. This will greatly improve on the feedstock for the Nigerian university

industry and hence the quality of her products. If Nigeria should succeed in ten years to

upgrade the nation’s universities to international standards, it would be a feat

unparalleled in the history of the African continent. But a rush to create mega

institutions from the current apologies we call universities will only aggravate the crisis

the Nigerian universities are currently experiencing.