Why university education is failing

The Executive Vice Chairman, Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) Ibadan, Dr Tunji Olaopa, has said university education is failing because it does not meet socioeconomic demands.

He said poor university education system was responsible for 30 percent of a glaring failure in the educational system in Nigeria while governance and political leadership took 70 per cent.

Dr Olaopa stated this while delivering a lecture entitled ‘All Work and No Play: Leisure, Excellence and Educational Values for Development’ to mark the 60th anniversary of the Senior Staff Club of the University of Ibadan.

According to him there are two indicators that demonstrate this failure.

“The first is the fact that Nigeria is now effectively a certificate society. This fact has so many implications. One, certification is hinged around university education. And the universities have now been reduced to theoretical laboratories that are often out of sync with external realities.

“Two, the fixation with university education has emasculated other tertiary level providers. The polytechnic, monotechnics and colleges of education have been left to rot and therefore unable to fulfill their specific objectives in articulating the different dimensions of functional education,” he said.