The Honourable Member of the House of Assembly is not really far from reality. In September 2021, I wrote: “ Yes, expect the privatization of some federal universities before the end of this decade! In Abia state, the state abandoned a college of education and weeds are now schooling therein!” Of course, the Honourable member was sparing the polytechnics; not sure that is possible.
The biggest risk in Nigeria’s university system is that the government can just give up and then ask BPE (the privatization agency) to open schools for privatization. And once ASUU goes on a strike for that, the government will abandon schools as the Abia state government did with its college of education.
Our schools need to be better funded but funding is not the only solution. In Rwanda, I met the minister of education (was there as a professor from Carnegie Mellon University on a work related visit) and saw how they merged most universities into one system, saving $millions by cutting out bureaucracy.
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Imagine a scenario where in Southeast Nigeria, we have only UNN with FUTO as its Engineering college, UNEC its Business college, Umudike as its Agriculture college, etc. Magically, you save millions by weeding out many pro-chancellors, vice chancellors, chancellors, etc. You do the same in the northern part with ABU Zaria anchoring; SW, etc.
Largely, we can have only 12 federal universities in Nigeria! What we have now makes no sense because we do not have the funds to run such a system.
Government has no funds
Whether we like it or not, Nigeria doesn’t have the funds to fund our federal university system as we have it now. The labour minister has made it clear.
“Mind you, it was promised by that administration and they promised to kickstart the payment and they paid N200 billion which they borrowed from TETFund. They did not take it from the federation account. That payment spiralled even into 2016, to our regime.
“Government now said we don’t have the money to pay for it. This was the agreement in 2016 to 2017 but we will find a way by which we can fund the universities and revitalise infrastructure
“I am hoping that ASUU should do the right thing and contact their members on the renegotiations that we have had in the last two weeks.
“First, the issue of earned academic allowances, we have agreed, given a timeline to the NUC to go back to the old template used in working out the 2021 earned academic allowance – 10.8 per cent of personnel cost.
“We want them to go back very quickly and use that same formula and get us what we are supposed to pay in 2022. That is agreed by everybody,” he said.
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Comment 1: While this analogy makes a lot of sense, the pride ingrained in an average Nigerian will make it impossible for University of Ibadan to cede to OAU as an anchoring institution and vis versa. Even University of Lagos will muscle it’s way into that equation of anchoring institution, using political connections to turn everything on its head.
Comment 2: Lols… Very sensible advise to merge the universities. But ASUU would find this unpopular especially with the possible job losses that could happen. I think we all aren’t ready. We all want to eat our cake and have it.
Comment 3: It’s long overdue. Not only education, the health and power sectors also needs to be privatized.
Regarding affordability, that’s where the role of government comes in. Provide scholarships for education and government subsidized health insurance for healthcare. Governments can also regulate prices, if needed.
Governments at any level should not be service or solutions providers. Who’s regulating and ensuring quality when the government is providing services? Governments should be regulators to ensure quality. Governments also make money from taxes.
Comment 4: is is the most sensible thing to do. But who will do it? Both the Executive and the Legislature are focusing on revenue generation whilst doing practically nothing about expenditure reduction. Hence we have an amalgam of government Department, Agencies and Institutions with dubious relevance sucking the live out of the country.
Comment 5: Good morning and thank you for this. Privatization is a near option to the problem combating Nigeria educations system. It can be structure in such a way that everybody is happy. Today it is the indigent student that suffers, not everyone. We can easily factor in that. Where there is scholarship and reasonable loans for students, and seriously simulated management system, there will be a turn around.
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