HOW CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITIES ARE CHANGING THE FACE OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA.

With better funding, strict disciplinary codes, end to endemic strikes and academic competitiveness as well as releasing of marks and grades which formerly belonged to 'God' to deserving students among a host of others, Church owned universities are bettering the lot of students and showing public universities the way to go.

By Leke Beecroft

The true wealth of a nation is measured by her ability to harness the human resources of her citizens. Thus, Brainhive, a resource firm invited Ben Carson to Nigeria on 23 Jan 2009, to lecture Nigeria students. Ben Carson is a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and former American Presidential candidate. He is the first doctor to perform a successful separation procedure on Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. Carson has 5 professionships in different fields in medicine and 33 honorary doctorate degrees. Ben Carson has been awarded the highest American civilian award.

Except for the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU-humorously nicknamed 'Oba Awon University' in yoruba, meaning 'King of the universities ),ILE-IFE, all other Nigerian public universities who desired to attend the unique lecture declined due to the financial implication. On 24 Jan 2009,Carson lectured about 5000 people in Babcock University and over 7000 students at Covenant University (CU). Impressed by the CU environment, he charged the students to “use this splendid university to get a first-class education”. This is a story of the present trend of private universities in Nigeria of which Church owned universities form the majority. The strong emergence of Church owned universities is a growing trend in Nigeria.

Private universities are universities, whose funding comes from tuition, investments and private donors.
Public universities however are those funded by public means through a national or sub-national government.
Private universities in Nigeria first evolved between 1979 and 1983.They were abolished in 1984 because they lacked concrete plans for further development. They re-emerged in 1999 with the National Universities Commission (NUC) charged with their regulation, accreditation and monitoring.

 

AN EXAMINATION OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

After Nigeria’s independence in 1960, the government began to establish universities to enable Nigerians take over from colonial expatriates. However, by the 1990s, public universities began to degenerate due to limited government funding. Some people problems were enlarged lecturer to student’s ratio, over-crowded classes, poor teaching and research, exam malpractice, cultism and incessant strike actions. These strikes destabilized the learning process and led to low quality output from lecturers as they strived to gain lost ground. Recently, Sa’ad Abubakar, Director, School of Remedial Studies, University of Abuja blamed the low standard in public universities on gross underfunding. He stated that the lecturers in Nigerian universities were about the least paid in Africa.Professor Abubakar said

“I hope parents will find time to go to the University of Abuja to see the extent of decay of instructional facilities and the total non-availability of some vital ones. We have three laboratories for 16000 students. Go into the laboratories and see what we have there….how can there be high standard of education in Nigeria when we don’t even have the necessary instruments to impact the required knowledge…we are not happy producing students under the current terrible situation”
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According to Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities in Nigeria, the conditions in public universities are so bad that none of them could attract foreign academics. Private universities are a significant improvement. They are made to conform to accreditation standards in staffing, finance, infrastructures and provision of facilities and services. Also, most of them adopt the American type cost-saving collegiate system in place of conventional faculties and departments. Hajiya Dukku, the former minister of state for education said only 220,000 of the 1.3 million candidates in the 2009 matriculation examination were admitted due to limited spaces in existing universities.

 

CARRYING CAPACITY OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES IN 2004

Serial(A) Number of Universities(B) Carrying Capacity(C) Current Enrolment(D)

A B C D
1 Public(48) 505,635 708,000
2 Private(8) 28,548 19,740

Source: NUC 2004

ENROLMENT IN MADONNA AND COVENANT UNIVERSITIES.

Serial- University- Year- Enrollment -Year Enrollment
A B C D E F
1 Madonna 1999 390 -2005 7000
2 Covenant 2002 853 -2009 7000

Private university tuition fees range from #370,000 to #2,600.000($2,200-$15,300) annually. The Guardian, a Nigerian newspaper, recently conducted a survey regarding parents view. It shows that 20 percent preferred public universities,70% preferred private universities if cost was not an issue while 10% preferred their children school abroad. Nigeria currently has 40 Federal universities, 43 state universities, and 70 private universities. There are also about 45 christian universities out of the 70 private ones. Presently, about 150 university applications are in different stages of application or awaiting approval. Among the 40 Federal universities are 6 which the federal government of Nigeria approved on 15 November 2010 and resumed in 2011 November with a total take off grant of $66 million.

THE GLOBAL TREND IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

The national population and number of universities in some countries as follows:

SELECTED COUNTRIES WITH POPULATION AND UNIVERSITY DATA.

SERIAL- COUNTRIES- POPULATION- NUMBER OF UNIVS
1 Mexico 11 million 1,341
2 Argentina 39million 1,705
3 Spain 40 million 145
4 France 60 million 1,062
5 Japan 130 million 726
6 Nigeria 180 million 153

Japan has 11 universities in the world’s top 200 and is close in population to Nigeria so she can be used in comparison.

COMPARISON OF UNIVERSITY DATA OF JAPAN AND NIGERIA

SERIAL(A) COUNTRY(B) PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES(C) PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES(D)

A B C D
1 Japan 173 553
2 Nigeria 83 70

The differentiated functions offered by private universities are of an advantage .In Nigeria, private universities have integrated Information Technology (IT) professional certification and entrepreneurial skill into curriculum .These skills are key requirements for job seekers. Toyin Enikuoemehin,a software engineer at the IT center of Lagos state ,University(LASU),states:

“It is largely because of the need for an IT education that even teachers in public universities send their children to private universities.”

Jim Ovia, former Managing Director, Zenith bank said that in a series of interviews conducted by the bank in 2009, foreign and private university graduates out performed public university graduates. The average cost of tuition fees, in Japan is $13,603 or #4,810,000 per annum. To defray this cost, students work part-time or borrow money through the government supported Japan Scholarship Association. Assistance is also offered by local governments, on-profit corporations and other institutions.

 

                                             

                                                PROSPECTS OF PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES.
Private universities have become a challenge to their public counterparts by maintaining stable academic calendars and by preventing cultism. Their teaching and learning environment is generally better because of their manageable size. They have also fared better in the NUC accreditation and have been able to attract a sizeable number of foreign academics. In the 2013 webometric worldwide accreditation ranking for universities, CU placed 1st among all Nigerian universities. Also, PAU and American University of Nigeria (AUN) are two of the best staff paying universities in Africa however they are the two most expensive in terms of cost. In 2010, the African Union (AU) Higher education Accreditation Committee ranked CU as the 7th best in Africa and also the #1 ranked university in Nigeria. CU is now 15 years old with a vision to be among the best ten in the world by 2022.

Asides better funding, the strict disciplinary codes have reduced the propensity to cultism and student rascalism among students. It has also reduced the very rampant academic strikes generally obtainable in public universities. Students can now fix a specific date to graduation. Public universities now have to deal with competition which they were never used to. The Christian universities however are often criticised for their fees and most times by comparing them with missionary owned primary and secondary schools of the past. Times have changed and there is really nothing to compare present private universities to in the Nigeria of the past. Schools basically provide all their amenities themselves from roads to water to electricity. Historians recall that lack of funding caused the Christ Apostolic Church to hand over 20 secondary schools to the government in the 1970s in Nigeria. It thus means that most of the critics will actually prefer the Christian universities to close down for lack of funding than to retain their regime of appropriate pricing of education (sometimes with heavy subsidies embedded) and be sustained; this gives the impression that it is more a matter of envy or lazy criticism. Academic competitiveness has improved the lot of students. In the days of yore, some marks were kept for 'God ', thus a student with a second class lower in a Nigerian University would easily come up with a first class in an American University. Now public universities lavish first class grades on deserving students.

The most prestigious and well-known schools in the world are largely private/christian universities. In the United States (US), the Ivy League universities like Harvard and Yale are private universities and among the best in the world. Harvard’s $26 billion endorsement is the largest of any academic institution in the world.

In summary, proper funding and good management are basic criterion for university growth. These revolve around proper planning ,visionary and focused leadership and high ethical standards. Private universities in Nigeria display potential for improvement and better focus with age.Thus, the government’s inability to meet the growing demand for university education led to emergence of private universities. The fall in public university standards have made private universities more attractive and preferable although expensive. Furthermore, Nigeria needs more universities to cater for her population. The increase in private universities globally is partly due to their specialized functions. Nigeria could take a cue from the Japanese system by giving students 'work-study' opportunities, scholarships, loans and grants. Nigerian private universities like Harvard, represent vibrant growing institutions of higher learning with potential excellence. Sustainable monitoring and quality control policies must be maintained to meet international standards and also to attract foreign academics.

If the current trend is maintained in the Nigerian tertiary system, the best 10 universities by 2037 will all be Private Universities with a heavy dose of their Christian Counterparts included.

Leke Beecroft is an author, artist and Air Traffic Controller