Eugene Upah|22 September 2017
The Nigerian University system is structured to educate, orientate, inform and implement academic policies that will eventually produce graduates of various disciplines after successfully undergoing series of intense study procedures. This is achieved by a set of guidelines (usually) set up by the governing bodies (JAMB, NUC etc.) tasked with enforcing policy(ies) and ensuring that certain standards are met by the academic awarding institutions.
These institutions are usually graded by the calibre of graduates they turnout, based on their academic prowess and the performances of these graduands in the labor markets amongst other criteria (conditions). In Nigeria today, the private varsity graduates are considered as being better and often given an edge during job placements, appointments, interviews, seminars, discourse, and other public presentations over the government owned ones as a result of immunity that cover the private institutions. For instance, while Madonna, Caritas, Covenant and Igbinedion Universities charge as high as Eight Hundred to One Million Naira as annual tuition fees, the University of Calabar (which is my case study) students across all Faculties and Departments haven’t paid anything higher than Fifty Thousand Naira (and even less) as tuition fees for a whole Session. The irony is that these private university graduates aren’t better than their contemporaries from the public universities during public outings (challenges).
In in other countries of the West, private institutions are seen as a dumping ground for students who aren’t bright enough to be admitted into the public schools. In fact, students of public varsities are often used as reference points to their peers in the private ones. Harvard University, University of Oxford, University of Leeds, University of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma State University, Illinois State University, University of California, University of Toronto, Warhouse University India, University of Arizona, and Sheffield University, to mention only a few are very famous institutions with pedigree and the graduates there churn out are competent enough to be staged on any platform around the world. This is because successive governments approach education like their personal businesses from inception and today, graduates of these schools can stand the taste of time anywhere in the world. Their policy is; quality and sustainable education for all.
A few days ago, I engaged this fellow of mine from a reputable private University in Nigeria whom we happen to have studied same disciplines; Computer Science. My “challenger” friend had boasted he came from an institution where his parents paid over Eight Hundred and Seventy Thousand Naira as fees so there was no way I could challenge him with my CRUTECH (Cross River University of Technology, Calabar) result when it came to matters of AI (Artificial Intelligence). For starters, AI is a phenomenon whereby systems (machines) are made to work efficiently as though there were as intelligent as humans. From one discussion to the other we began to design scripts and went ahead to write lines of codes. And suddenly he stalled. He had no proficient knowledge on how to write or debug codes. He used the wrong languages to query commands. When I asked what the problem was, he revealed to me how he had never seen/heard about some structures I was working with. This fellow is not the only one like this; there are hundreds of other private (only for profit making) University graduates like these who hide under the cover of big institutions to shield and entrench themselves in the labor markets. Matter of fact, most of them, except for a select few ones, cannot undergo the academic heat (pressure) from the government Universities. This is so in the public schools because most times the system is “deliberately” structured to become difficult by the people mounting these institutions. A third Class Degree holder from the Department of Chemistry or Economics or Geology or Biochemistry from UNICAL is equivalent to a First Class holder from Caritas or Madonna or Igbinedion. Statistical and very coherent comparisons (with facts) have over the years shown that graduates of public institutions in Nigeria are miles better than their contemporaries from the private system. This is more provable as you can find some private varsity students whose sojourn were botched as a result of an expulsion or the inability of the Guardians to continue battling with third class Degree in the public schools even though they were maintaining a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.5 and above while in the “big” private institutions. Again, there are not exposed to activism and other social activities while on campus, they are carefully manned by the strictest, harshest set of rules. Students are mandated to dress in a particular way, guys and girls have interactive time limits with each other that must not be violated, even secular music is prohibited. Life on campus is like looking at honey in a tightly sealed, unbreakable glass. No access to social leisure. And their administrators/parents think it is a good thing? Even after graduation, only a few are able to survive the circular (street) hustles as a result of the carefully pampered lifestyle they are made to enjoy.
Suffice it is not to say that the latter aren’t good, No! We must begin to understand that our public institutions of higher learning are not ramshackle or shoddy islands as seen by some parents and owners of private varsities. I will choose the University of Nigeria (Nsukka), or UI (badan) or UNILAG or ABU Zaria or FUTO (Owerri) a million times over the private institutions. If a guardian has two children, sends one to an institution where he pays a paltry N50,000 or less and the other to an institution that gulps well close to a million Naira we expect that the process of the school making a champion out of such a student must be deliberate, and the chances (results) that student must be successful in future almost predictable. Else why pay that high? Some foreign Universities charge less than what the home-based (local) universities charge as fees. The monopoly of private institutions over the public institutions of higher learning in Nigeria must be breached.
Eugene Upah
Is a Social Commentator
