”The Minister, on behalf of the federal government will today present a Certificate of Registration to the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA). With that, ASUU may cease to exist again in our universities” (source). This is a very bad idea. Yes, any playbook to disband ASUU for another clone is nonsensical. Without fixing the root cause, the new CONUA will meet the same fate as ASUU.
What is my proposal? Cut down administrative costs by pruning dozens of our federal universities into 12 universities with two in each of the geopolitical zones. If you do that, the university system will save close to 37% of its total operating budgets. When that happens, even with no new funds from the largely empty national treasury, the schools will have spare cash to run operations.
Of course, this has zero chance because ASUU members want to be vice chancellors, deans, etc. But if they visit Rwanda, they will see that schools can magically have “more funds” through reorganization.
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Rwanda copied the University of California system. In that system, one person oversees UC’s world-renowned university system of 10 universities, five medical schools, three nationally affiliated labs, more than 280,000 students and 230,000 faculty and staff. Most of those universities are ranked in the top 50 in the world: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, etc.
Run the numbers – one person is managing 280k students which is basically 50% of total enrollment in the Nigerian university system. The total public university capacity in Nigeria is less than 1.5 million students but you have more than 100 vice chancellors translating to an average of 15k students per chancellor!
As the controversy between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) nears its eighth month, the government has moved to replace the union with its breakaway faction.
Daily Trust reports that Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA), a breakaway faction of ASUU, has been officially registered as a trade union in a move to reopen academic activities in public universities.
According to the report, a source at the Ministry of Labour and Employment had revealed on Tuesday, that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, will present a Certificate of Registration to the new union before the end of the day.
In Southeast, FUTO can be the engineering campus for UNN with no Vice Chancellor, pro chancellor, etc but just a Dean or provost. The Fed Agriculture Umudike becomes the Agric School of UNN. Like in the California system which Rwanda copied, you end up having just two vice chancellors who will run all the federal universities in SE. You save costs on cars, housing, etc and those will go into real learning. Interestingly, like in the California system, you increase enrollment. Think about it, if Amazon has one CFO (chief financial officer) to serve more than 1 million workers, why should each university have a bursar when 1-2 can handle per geopolitical region?
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Comment 1: Ndubuisi Ekekwe Sir, I suggest you seek audience from and pick the brain of the Vice Chancellor of FUTMINNA (who has just about 55 days left in office).
I anchored an alumni program for their old students on Sat. 1st Oct. and Prof. Abdullahi Bala blew my mind – His eloquence, analysis of issues and the true input of federal govt. opened the eyes of everyone present. Eitherto, many have been led to believe that government underfunds the university until we heard him on Saturday. Ask him about TET Fund.
Based on his eye opener, I’ll dare say that merging the universities as you’ve proposed will be a disaster if one vice chancellor is struggling to manage each one and having to worry about revenue generation to make up for cost differentials between what they get from FG and their IGR.
My Response: Since we do not know, there is no way we can respond. But if I may ask, what has happened in FUTMinna compared with other universities in Nigeria? Can you share? My understanding is that FUTMinna increased fees to have more resources.
“I’ll dare say that merging the universities as you’ve proposed will be a disaster ” – maybe in Nigeria but in US one person manages 280k while we do average of 15k students per chancellor. Also, notice that Rwanda copied that model and it has worked really well.
“Hitherto, many have been led to believe that government underfunds the university ” our schools are underfunded. Harvard University budget is at least 3x the whole budget of ministry of education in Nigeria. That is underfunding!
Comment 2: Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe; you stated one of the best solutions yet you wrote it has zero chance of acceptance, that is the complexity of our society. I quote:
“Of course, this has zero chance because ASUU members want to be vice chancellors, deans, etc”
What you did not mention is that which of the tribes will allow the universities in their regions to be scrapped or changed to satellite campuses?
Most of the federal and state universities were established to settle political considerations/agitation.
Remember also that some states were established not for viability but political exigency.
Moving on>>>>>
Comment 3: I am for cutting down the cost of education by the Federal Government and trimming the size of the administration but we should be careful not to put the cart before the wheel… the most important questions that we should be asking are… why is that year after year… the budget of the Nigerian State for education has been nothing but worthy of laughter? As Thandika Mkandawire said “African Universities would have to run while others walk if we are to transform our universities into labs of innovation”.
What has happened to all the revenue of the State? The incessant borrowing of this Administration has been used to fix exactly what in Nigeria?.. The Ottoman Turks had an adage that said “The fish gets rotten from the head”.. we need to start addressing the main issues and not focus on symptoms (of which the current FG-ASUU crisis is nothing but a symptom of larger institutional decay). My people would say “Adighi ahapu isi aka were gbawa olionu”
My Response: My post is on the assumption that Nigeria has no extra capacity to add extra Naira to what it currently contributes. So, the game is reorganization or remove the veil on education subsidy. The latter will be bad.
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We run the university education here the same way we run petrol subsidy, and both are delivering similar outcomes.
It is not about talking or making suggestions, but we first need to ask if we need universities fully funded by the government, if the answer is yes, the next question will be, how many of them? Answering the second question must be premised on how much will be available and where the funds will be coming from.
Even if you make ASUU president the president of Nigeria, I can tell you that he won’t be able to fund the universities, but in the spirit of activism, everyone seems to be making sense.
Neither the government nor ASUU has credible solution to the current malaise, because whatever patch either provides today, the same malady will return within two years.
It’s a number thing, and all the yammerings have not shown that there’s a vault where all the money needed to consistently and sustainably fund these universities is sitting.
It’s either we run proper universities or we restrict our funding to basic education, anything else is delusional.
You cannot have lazy people both in government and academic and somewhat expect wonders. In matters of revenue and efficient administration, both are mediocre.