The Urgency in University Funding Reform
Do not burn anything. Do not destroy any property. You need them and they belong to you. But make your case known. Students of state-owned Adekunle Ajasin University (Ondo State) are protesting last week increase of tuition from N30k to N180k.
It is immoral for a government to increase university school fees by 500% when the same government thinks N18k monthly wage is too much for a teacher. Perhaps, teacher’s children are not wired for university education.
Yet, we need to understand the challenges governments face. There is no way the new $500 annual tuition can fund quality university education [sure, government provides subsidies]. Government needs more resources to offer higher value.
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Unfortunately, tuition cannot fix that challenge. The only benefit most Nigerians get from Nigeria is the highly subsidized state school. Without it, many of us would not be reading this.
Here, I provide a roadmap on how government can inject new cash into our school system through private capital.
Donation money given to schools is tax deductible because the schools are tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Service tax code. This is the key reason. If Apple or GM were to do the training in-house, the tax benefits will not materialize. They will still train the young people, but they cannot deduct that money. But by giving the money to colleges, they get the trained people and still get the deductions. This makes it easier when you need scale, beyond what you can have inside as staff for talent pipeline.
In a country where wealth creation appears somewhat 'abnormal', this is what is obtainable. Government needs more money to take care of its increasing obligations, the challenge is that it doesn't know how to generate more money, other than squeezing the same few productive people it has been squeezing for ages.
The reality is that there's no enough money to fund education and other basic needs, but the government in its 'inverted' wisdom felt it could do wonders by asking already struggling parents to pay more.
The only remedy is to empower the citizens, which in turn creates more wealth, then there would be money everywhere even to take of our desires, not just basic needs.
Well said Francis. On empowering the citizens, the government will need to be more intentional in creating a conducive environment for industrial scale businesses to thrive. Increase duty import taxes on finished goods and lower same on raw materials to encourage local production. The more industries we have the more money can be accrued via tax.
