Nigeria's Private Universities Campaign for Public Funding
Okey Iheduru
  NIGERIA Private universities campaign for public funding Tunde Fatunde07 November 2014 Issue No:342 |
But advocates of more state funding for public universities are strongly opposed to private institutions benefiting from public money.
They are of the view that public universities were created, with limited state resources, to provide higher education opportunities for children of the less privileged. Rather than seeking state funds, private institutions should initiate creative programmes to generate income from Nigeria’s dynamic private sector.
Meanwhile, some social commentators have controversially questioned the value of funding either public or private universities, given that they allegedly both churn out unemployable graduates.
The arguments
Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper recently published an article by Professor Sola Fajana, vice-chancellor of Joseph Ayo Babalola University in Ikeji-Arakeji in southwest Nigeria, in which he articulated reasons for his funding campaign. They included that:
- More than 50 private universities have provided opportunities for young people with the ambition to obtain university degrees and diplomas.
- Private universities are responding to the unemployability of Nigerian graduates at all levels, through entrepreneurship education.
- Private universities have raised the moral standards of students. Parents and candidates now have choice, and ill discipline and cultism have been significantly curtailed because the proprietors of private institutions are mostly faith-oriented.
- Education as a business project has a long gestation period. There is virtually no profit for most private universities in the first 15 to 20 years. Without state assistance, the proprietor is forced to continue to give subsidies and grants. The capacity of the proprietor to do this determines whether the private institution is sustainable or not.
Fajana’s robust submission was supported by Professor Andrew Onokerhoraye, pro-chancellor of Western Delta University in Ogbara, Delta state. According to him, private universities are helping to meet Nigeria’s manpower needs. He advanced the following reasons in support of Fajana’s postulations:
- During the colonial period, the state gave ‘grants-in-aid’ to private primary and secondary schools – including his private secondary school. “It gave my school the opportunity to compete favourably with public schools in the production of good candidates for public universities. There was no private university at that time. The same process should be resuscitated,” he declared.
- Public universities are funded by federal and state governments with taxpayers’ money. Private universities generate their own funds with little or no aid, but must play by the same rules in terms of infrastructure, admissions, teaching and research as prescribed by the National Universities Commission and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.
- Only public universities have access to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund – but private universities deserve a share. “We need to understand the fact that whether federal, state or private universities, our goals are the same – that is, to produce an educated workforce that will meet Nigeria’s needs in the 21st century,” he wrote.
Opposition
On the other end of the spectrum, many lecturers in public universities are completely opposed to the idea of government funds going to private universities.
Babatunde Odunlami, of the department of history and diplomatic studies at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun state, argued that private universities did not need the state funds to operate. He pointed out that the owners of private institutions were rich business people with local and international sources of funding.
He cited information from a recent Reuters article revealing that five Pentecostal pastors were among the richest Nigerians. “The point here is that private universities, especially all the faith-based organisations, don’t require state funds. They have enough money to drive their universities.
“Therefore this debate on the need for the state to fund private universities is not necessary. This is pure diversion. No religious organisations pay tax to the state. They don’t deserve funds from the state to run their universities,” Odunlami said.
Dr Tajudeen Akanji of the faculty of education at the University of Ibadan, is not opposed in principle to state funds being used to assist private universities.
However, they must subject themselves to conditions existing for public universities – such as financial transparency, open criteria in student admissions, and allowing academics to operate trade unions as in public universities.
Dr Peter Olapegba, of the psychology department at the University of Lagos, declared the idea of giving state funds to private universities laughable.
“These private universities are run like capitalist economic ventures. They are charging exorbitant tuition fees without any interference from the state. The proprietors should dip their hands into their immense treasuries to sustain their universities. This debate has no substance.”
Despite the stiff opposition from some quarters, supporters of using state funds to assist private universities are determined to pursue their campaign.
You can access some of my papers on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=2131462.
Mobolaji Aluko
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Okey Iheduru
Of course, telling VC Aluko about the challenges facing Nigerian universities is like carrying coal to Coal Camp in Enugu. Nonetheless, here are a few data that you're familiar with and which make the proposition for public funding of private universities problematic for me.
The most popular universities in 2011 among JAMB applicants were the University of Lagos (99,195 applicants for 6,106 places), followed by Ahmadu Bello University (89,760), the University of Nigeria Nsukka (88,177), Nnamdi Azikiwe University (84,719) and the University of Benin (80,976). yet, none of them admitted more than 7,000 applicants, respectively (see the table of admits for 2012-2013 below). Uniben alone dwarfs ALL private universities in both undergraduate admissions and research productivity. Would it then be fair to allocate 10 percent of federal research funding to private universities and also allow them to compete for the remaining 40 percent of the funds, while Uniben and the other 39 federal universities fight over 50 percent of the funds? Haba, my brother, statistics can be fuzzy at times!
Limited admission spaces: Way out of admission problems, by stakeholders
Vanguard on July 03, 2014 / in Environment 12:52 am / Comments
BY DAYO ADESULU
In the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, (UTME) brochure, candidates seeking admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions are listed under the following categories: University, Polytechnic/Monotechnic, College of Education (CoE) and Innovation Enterprise Institutions (IEIs). Innovation Enterprise Institutions are institutions approved by the Federal Government of Nigeria to provide a veritable alternative route to higher education.
Students writing exam
As at 2013, Nigeria had 40 federal universities, 38 state universities, 50 private universities, 128 polytechnics and monotechnics, 117 Colleges of Education and 57 Innovation Enterprise Institutions, bringing the total number of tertiary institutions to 430. Nevertheless, many Nigerian students seeking tertiary education are more interested in university education.
In 2010/2011, Nigeria had 112 universities with carrying capacity of 450,000 and 1,493,611 applicants. Thus, the admitting capacity was 30.13 per cent of the total number of applicants. This means that at best, only 30.13 per cent of the total number of applicants were accommodated during that academic session.
In the 2011/2012 session, five universities were added, bringing the number to 117, with 500,000 carrying capacity amounting to 33.25 per cent and 1,503,933 students applied that year. However, in 2012/2013, 11 universities were added bringing it to 128 with 520,000 (29.96 per cent) admission spaces. In that year, a total of 1,735,729 applied for UTME.
According to National Universities Commission report of 2011/2012, most of the universities in Nigeria exceeded the alloted admission quota.
For instance, in 2011/2012, University of Lagos (UNILAG)’s admission quota was 6,500 but admitted 7,527; Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) was given 6,688 but admitted 7,397, just as University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) was given 5,970 but admitted 8,267.
University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) in the same year was supposed to admit 5,514 but ended up admitting 7,098 while University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) which was given 5,600, admitted 5,699. Also Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi which ought to admit just 2,133 ended up admitting 3,350 students. The above analysis of these federal universities admission quota explains why our universities are over-crowded and lack facilities for students.
Besides, statistical data from JAMB reveals that there are about 30 most preferred universities by students seeking admission every year. In this report, we will look at the top 10 and the number of applicants.
University of Benin (UNIBEN) tops the table with 98,975 applicants, followed by UNILORIN having 94,869. Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU) has 88,087, UNILAG 86,850, UNN 80,785, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) 69,856, ABU 59,427, Imo State University (IMSU) 53,368, University of Uyo (UNIUYO) 52,359 and University of Ibadan (UI) 50,274. This statistics implies that the above mentioned universities were consistently chosen as students’ first choice.
According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities, America has 2,680 accredited universities, just as Scotland has 1,419, Wales 1,011. India, with a population of over a billion has over 177 world class standard universities. China has 1,983 institutions of higher learning as at June 2009, as disclosed by the Ministry of Education.
Thus, China with 1.4 billion people has 1,983 universities, India with 1.2 billion people has 177 universities, United States with 318 million people has 2,680 universities compared to Nigeria with about 178 million people and just 128 universities. From the aforementioned statistics, Nigeria still needs more universities and the improvement of the present ones to international standard.
Speaking with Vanguard Learning, Prof. Florence Banku Obi, Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Calaber said that capacity will determine the number of students to be admitted saying: “If we don’t have the capacity, there is no way we can admit more students.”
She noted that licensing more private universities will not solve the problem. According to her, “If you are licensing more universities, where are the lecturers? The same lecturers in federal universities are the ones taking those in private and state universities. The existing universities should be expanded with corresponding infrastructure and facilities to suit the number of students given by the NUC.” She urged the Federal Government to expand the existing universities and get more lecturers before admitting more students.
Reacting in the same vein, the Deputy Director, Academic Centre of Distance Learning, University of Ibadan, Professor Oyesoji Aremu said that it is needless to tell universities to increase their quotas because there is no corresponding increase in terms of infrastructure.
He said, “Telling universities to increase their quota means existing infrastructure would be over stressed. Universities admit the number they can genuinely and comfortably accommodate in the first year.” Explaining further some of the factors to consider before admitting more students Aremu said that infrastructure in departments and faculties are necessary adding that the unavailability of desks in the lecture rooms should be considered.
According to him, in an over- crowded classroom, teaching and learning cannot take place adding that even the lecturer will not be able to do meaningful teaching when the learners are too many. He said “there is a benchmark for the number of students each lecturer is supposed to take. When a lecturer takes in excess of that number, he has to be paid for the excess. That would eat into the finances of the university.
“If JAMB sees that universities can take only 600,000 students per year but still rolls out forms, what happens to the others? Mind you, it didn’t start this year so the number will increase every year,. The question is, where will they go? All these learners are qualified to enter the university.
“Solution: For as many as are qualified to enter the universities, something can be done about it. There is Open and Standard Education or Distance Learning Education. For Open and Standard education, we can have students in excess of millions because it is basically a virtual university.
My advice is that the Federal Government should empower universities to develop their virtual universities. For example, in University of Ibadan, we have a centre called Distance Learning Centre of the Univerity of Ibadan. Lagos also has a Distance Learning Institute, there is also the National Open University.
In fact, there are seven certified distance learning centres in Nigeria. Universities that have dual mode; regular students and open distance learning programmes can have students in excess. For example; University of India in New Delhi has students in excess of 10 million. They therefore built a virtual university to take these students who are unable to get admission into regular universities.
More so, it is the same programme, exam and system. The Ministry of Education should encourage virtual universities. There is no need for new universities, just empower universities to have virtual and distance learning centres.
Mobolaji Aluko
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