Higher education in Nigeria, quite frankly, is facing immense challenges but these challenges are not insurmountable. Topmost on the long list of challenges faced by the sector include inadequate funding, poor infrastructure, poorly remunerated academics, outdated curriculum, bureaucracy, insecurity, among others. Over the years, these challenges have stemmed from a lack of visionary leadership and direction, neglect, incompetence, weak policy formulation and implementation, and population explosion. The outcomes have been unmotivated and uninspiring academics, brain drain, dilapidated infrastructure, and unemployable graduates.
At the recently concluded presidential cabinet retreat, President Bola Tinubu stated that “focusing on education, health and social investment are essential pillars of development.” I strongly agree with him. But to achieve the stated goal of Tinubu and his administration, especially in the educational sector, the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, and the Ministry of Education will need to consider some radical solutions and initiatives in overhauling the sector.
The welfare of academics needs to be taken very seriously by the current administration. This point cannot be overemphasised. Teaching is a noble profession. However, it seems in Nigeria that it is not. This is because we do not treat our lecturers like they matter. We do not treat them like we value them. A lot of our lecturers do a fantastic job, and we need to reward them for the excellent job that they do. If we don’t remunerate our academics adequately, morale will be at a low level, and we will not be getting the best out of those who decide to remain in the industry. This, in turn, will neither be good for students nor the nation. We need to significantly increase the budgetary allocation for the educational sector and pay academics adequately if the government wants to continue running these institutions.
It is the role of the state governments and Federal Government who own and run these universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education to ensure staff development. A mediocre lecturer cannot impact maximum knowledge because you cannot give what you don’t have. That being said lecturers need to recognise the role of personal and professional development. A lecturer cannot teach with notebooks from the 1990s and textbooks from the 2000s and blame that on the government.
I visited the Federal University of Technology Akure and the University of Lagos while I was in Nigeria between July and August 2023. Many buildings in these prestigious institutions have become dilapidated, teaching rooms lack basic equipment like projectors, and many hostels are simply unliveable. This has to change.
The world is changing. We should be ahead of the curve or at least not allow our educational sector to be left so far behind. When the COVID-19 pandemic started in the first quarter of 2020 all British universities were able to switch to an online mode of delivery for all teaching sessions. This transition was completed within a week or two. We need to invest massively in tech-enabled delivery of teaching and administration. We have what it takes to deliver on this. The Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, led by Dr Bosun Tijani, can work in partnership with the Ministry of Education to draw up a tech-enabled teaching delivery strategy.
A lot of our graduates are unemployable. Improving graduate employability should be a key priority of the Minister of Education. We need to take bold steps and change this messy situation. Tertiary education should not be about cramming, copying and pasting from textbooks. Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education should be assisting their students to gain valuable skills which might be useful in solving complex problems in the real world. Employers want to be sure that graduates can do the job and that they can fit into their organisations. Having the ability and capacity to do a job might not necessarily be a result of having a first-class degree or being a clever student. There are loads of first-class graduates who do not have the necessary employability and transferable skills. We should be paying attention to, and improving the employability of young Nigerians, using world-class standards. Skilled graduates will go on to contribute to economic development. Therefore, to create a more prosperous nation, improving the skills and employability of our graduates is essential and the Federal Government needs to prioritise investment in employability and enterprise skills development.
Punch