Numbers don’t matter

The last time someone checked, this giant of Africa was also the continent’s educational giant. It had 174 universities distributed as follows: federal, 53; states, 52 and 79 private, 79. Impressive by any and all standards. Perhaps, as you are reading this more universities must have been planted in some obscure corners of the country, thus giving us even a larger number that should be the envy of other developing countries. Both the National Universities Commission, NUC, and the executive council of the federation seem bent on making our country the university capital of the continent. That should take the sting from our being the poverty capital of the world. Capital, some capital.

Numbers are good because the more universities we have, the greater access the Nigerian child has to higher education and a better future, theoretically, at least. I think the Romans forgot to tell us that civilisation and development follow a large number of universities. Thank goodness, now we know.

Actually, as impressive as they might be, numbers do not really matter. In our own case, they are for show, empty show. What does matter is an intangible thing called quality. That elementary fact has been thrown in the face of the country like a rotten egg time and again by experts who thumb their noses at the increasing number of universities, gleaming edifices but nearly all of which exist to mine the desperation of young Nigerians and their parents for higher educational qualifications. Universities are judged by their capacity as great centres of learning, able to develop the brains and the mind of their students and then send them out into the wide, wild world, each to improve it with the tools of his training and qualification; not by their architectural wonders.

Here is proof that numbers in and of themselves give a false impression about the state of our 174 universities. The Centre for World University Ranking has just released its 2020/2021 ranking of the world’s best 2,000 universities. How do our universities stand? You cannot find any of them among the top 1,000 universities. But you would find two of them among the top 2,000. The University of Ibadan, our premier university and the father of all our universities, was ranked 1,163 and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, trailed behind at number 1,882.

If you are tempted to drink to that, then consider this. Thirteen universities in South Africa are ranked among the best 2,000 universities in the world; seven of them are found among the 1,000 universities in the world. It is often painful to see that when you are looking for our country where it matters most, you cannot find it; rather you would easily find it leading the first eleven in matters negative such as corruption, weak governance and, of course, poverty.

Our educational progress has been defined more by motion than movement. And this has arrested our national development in all indices of development. Our investment in education is less than what other countries invest in their primary and secondary schools. The annual federal budget on education has never made it beyond eight per cent. Indeed, under President Buhari who, in November 2017 said at a retreat organised by the federal ministry of education, that to get it right, we must get our education right, the budget is a miserly six per cent.

UNESCO recommends 26 per cent, a recommendation surpassed by many African countries with a demonstrable will to move their citizens into the knowledge-driven 21st century. Despite its miserable, cynical and paltry commitment to education, the Buhari administration finds it convenient to plant new universities, some which are rather strange, such as transportation university. He generously dashed universities to each of his lucky service chiefs – army university, air force university and navy university.

In the last 30 years or so our university teachers have consistently protested against the harm that successive federal and state administration have done and are doing to our education. They protest inadequate funding; they protest poor facilities; they protest poor staffing and they protest their starvation wages. But the teachers have been consistently vilified and treated like children throwing tantrums at convenient intervals.

Given this condemnable attitude on the parts of the governments, in all these years of principled protests by ASUU for the good of our tertiary educational development, nothing has appreciably changed. Some of the universities are hardly better than village secondary schools. We all ought to be saddened and ashamed that the governments continue to demonstrate a crying lack of will to tackle a problem they know has arrested our national development and pushed our country to the back woods of development among African countries.

The primary school is the foundation of education; yet it is in a sorry state. Teachers are not paid; in some states, pupils still study under trees or sit on the floor in what pass for classrooms. And yet, this is the foundation on which the 174 universities are built and many more would be built. Nigeria is not in a position, really, to compete and expect to earn anything but poor ranking among the best universities in the world. But if there is a ranking for worst universities in the world you could be sure that our universities would shine and shine quite brightly.

Professor Ayo Akinwole, chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU, in reaction to the ranking, said, quite correctly, according to ThisDay, that it “has vindicated the struggle by ASUU to make government commit not less than 26 per cent of its national budget to education.” The newspaper also reported him as saying that the “truth of the matter is that Nigeria academics are using their own blood to still make Nigerian varsities run because government has become irresponsible and wicked.” As the palm wine drinker would say, true word.

Would the ranking jolt the federal and state governments? I advise you not to bet on it. Nothing will change. More universities will be licensed and allowed to operate from batcha and governments will hold them up as evidence that we are making remarkable progress in our educational development. Living in denial has its fundamental uses. It saves you heart ache and keeps your blood pressure down. Isn’t that something?

In the last 30 years or so our university teachers have consistently protested against the harm that successive federal and state administration have done and are doing to our education. They protest inadequate funding; they protest poor facilities; they protest poor staffing and they protest their starvation wages.