How Nigerian Universities Fared In 2016

Universities, the world over, have moved from the periphery to the centre of government agenda. The universities are crucial national assets in addressing many policies, priorities, sources of new knowledge, innovative thinking and providing skilled personnel, credible talents and business investment agents. They are equally agents of social justice and mobility.
Whereas people with higher education may be sensitive to these diverse functions, the reality is that in policy making circles, the discourse is about universities tending to be dominated by analysis of how they can best fulfil a direct economic function.
In terms of global ranking and competitiveness, Nigerian universities are not doing badly after all, judging from the openness in the world universities ranking for the second half of 2016, recently released by Webometrics.
Only 30 Nigerian universities featured among 4,129 ranked worldwide by Webometrics with the Harvard University, U.S.A, coming first in the world as usual. None of these 30 Nigerian universities featured among the first 1,000.
Openness refers to the total number of pdf files of a university, according to google. It relies on information (statistics) of web publications of a specific period of time available on google scholar.
So, the ranking is based on the volume of research articles published by a university. Openness rank is a part of the many indicators that make up several university rankings, others being excellence, presence and visibility for Webometrics.
While the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), which tops the 30 universities placed 1,433 on the global ranking, the 30th, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike ranked 3,515.
Inpite of these low global rankings, the Vice-Chancellor, Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, believes that Nigerian universities still possess high standards, courtesy of effective regulatory system.
“The regulatory authorities are doing a lot of work now. What the regulatory bodies should continue to do is to deepen what they are doing because the moment they give standards and they don’t allow any of the institutions to compromise on the standards; you will see that it will be easy for our children to go to any institution.
“What we need is for the regulatory authorities to continue to do it as they are doing it, doing it right because I have seen in the recent time that our regulatory authorities are beginning to act very well.
“The moment they do that and the standards are maintained, it will be easy for our students to go to anywhere; it will now be a function of what can you afford, either private or public institutions, there is that standard, anybody can go anywhere.
“It is not that Nigerian universities are not delivering on standards,’’ Fagbohun said.
In 2016, many education analysts were dissatisfied with the slow progress made by proprietors of the various universities, (federal, state and private) in retooling them and making them globally competitive.
Although the system displayed a relatively steady academic calendar in 2016, analysts attributed the development to the magnanimity of various labour unions in the system.
The system has suffered several administrative setbacks and malfunctions owing to several needs under past administrations.
Analysts are not comfortable with the persistent poor operational environment under which the system is meant to operate. To make matters worse, government, rather than address these begging needs, went ahead to approve the establishment of eight more private universities in November.
A former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola, had in 2015, while delivering the 10th Convocation Lecture of the Covenant University in Ota, Ogun, pointed out that there were widespread agitation for expansion of access to university education and increased high level national human resources requirement and technical development.
This, he said, contributed greatly to the establishment of the second generation and other specialised universities.
However, with the over 150 universities currently operating in the country, there are concerns of meeting the mandates of these universities going by their poor funding system and other challenges.
One of such challenges is perceived to be that of the quality of graduates who are said to be lacking in required skills relevant to the overall national and regional developments.
In his presentation, Okebukola also noted that poor ranking of the country’s universities, lack of global competitiveness is another great concern. He noted that the most recent empirical source to turn to for insight into these challenges was the 2012 Needs Assessment report of the Federal Government.
According to him, the report shows that majority of the universities are grossly understaffed; relying heavily on part-time and visiting lecturers; have under-qualified academics and have no effective staff development programmes outside the Tertiary Education Trust Fund  (TETfund) intervention.
The National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, is of the view that the system is in need of high profile intervention if the country intends to make meaningful progress in national development.
According to him, the one-week warning strike embarked upon by lecturers of Nigerian universities in November last year was to sensitise the government on the association’s demands for a better system come 2017.
“Our demands, on which we have already started discussions with the Federal Government, will be carried out to its logical conclusion.
“Our universities are struggling to survive. It is seriously because of inadequate funding and lack of faith with their principals, that is, federal and state governments and private individuals.
“We indeed hardly want to comment on private universities because you cannot truly ascertain their status, they often times poach lecturers from public universities.
“In the public universities, we also suffer issues of uncompleted projects because most often, funds that are earmarked for such projects are usually not released.
“These universities have always relied on TETfund intervention and unfortunately, this body does not have much to dispense now,’’ Ogunyemi said.
The ASUU national chairman said situations in the universities have continued to demoralise the few existing staff, saying, for instance salaries of staff in most universities have been slashed.
“These salaries are never paid in full. There are situations where staff of federal universities received less than half salaries.
“So, when you look at this on the side of funding, it is like this year’s (2016) situation is worst. And with situations like these, performance of universities will be hampered.
“On a visit to most universities, you will find out that morale of staff is at the lowest ebb.
“So, this outgoing year (2016), we have only tried to exist at a marginal level,’’
Nwachukwu is of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

Chinyere Nwachukwu