By Owei Lakemfa
CONGRATULATIONS! The number of our universities has swelled to 117, no mean achievement from  the pre-independence days when we had only the University College, Ibadan. The irony  is that when we had a handful of universities,  they  were some of the best in the world, today, our tertiary institutions cannot easily be captured on the radar of universities in Africa while they are missing amongst the world’s best.

The swell in the number of universities has come from three  sources: the private  sector where the primary aim in establishing  glorified secondary schools and poultry sheds called private universities, is profit.

In this category are public office holders who set up universities to hide their loot or explain away their riches. In this same  gathering are religious institutions most of which  establish  these institutions  not to further their moral or social beliefs, but solely as money making businesses to exploit hapless Nigerians.

The second category  manufacturing universities are state governments. Ironically, some of them already have state universities that are starved of funds, but inexplicably convert existing Colleges  of Education into universities.

Of course, the greatest conjurer is the Federal Government. First, it classified polytechnics as inferior institutions, and the Higher National Diploma as quite inferior to a university degree even if the Diploma were issued by a highly reputable and respected institution like the Yaba College of Technology, and the degree, by one of the roadside universities that are peopled by lecturers moonlighting from public universities.

Having destroyed the  confidence of polytechnics and Colleges of Education, the Federal Government proceeded as a political calculation, to offer some of them, the opportunity of being converted into universities. In the process, it is consigning the polytechnics to the arena of people who are too dull or unfortunate to get admission into universities.

A second wave of calling universities into existence is the decision to establish at least half a dozen new federal universities in states. It is trite to say the existing public universities are severely malnourished as a result of being starved by the governments. The Federal Government’s argument is that given the number of Nigerians  battling for admission into universities, and the few spaces available, there is the need to build more universities.

It is true that the spaces are few, but is the multiplication of universities the best option? Is it logical to elongate the list of poorly funded universities on life support? Wouldn’t it have been better  to expand the existing facilities to take in more students and improve staff welfare rather than spend money  creating new bureaucracies, including new crowds of Governing Councils, a retinue of Vice Chancellors, tribes of deans  and nations of registrars?

To me, it is not logical  for government to establish  universities  like it did airports  with many being non- functional or useful, and  aircraft competing for landing rights on the runway with goats and sheep like the Bauchi Airport.

There is no doubt that the public universities, especially the federal ones are generally far better than the private ones in terms of infrastructure and staff quality, but what I fear is that like it happened to the public primary and post- primary schools, they may be run down in favour of the poor quality private universities.

There was a recent Education Summit in Osun State and the comments of the Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola were food  for thought. For instance he asked: “Are we serving the youths well  when we send them to institutions that are constantly  under such financial strain and burden that  basic education amenities  are rarely updated  to a level  required for accreditation in developed countries?”

Let me paraphrase some of his interrogations on education in Osun State  in   the wider national context; “How many universities does (Nigeria) need?” Personally, I don’t know, and I am not sure government knows either. “How many can we afford?” I cannot say, but I know that a government that cannot fund the current number of universities has no business establishing new ones.

“Why are we so fascinated with tertiary institutions when the feeder institutions at the primary  and  secondary  levels are consigned  to failure and mediocrity?” In other words,  can we build solid universities on the rotten foundations  of the lower levels of education?  Or do we expect the universities to be correction centres for the badly or ill educated products of the lower education system? Like the trite in  computer terminology, is it not a case of garbage in, garbage out?

Aregbesola’s  rhetorical question is: “Will the tertiary institutions not be matriculating  the defective products  from the primary and secondary schools?” This undoubtedly will be the case; we cannot build  the infrastructure of literacy on a foundation of illiteracy; we cannot  build universities of excellence on  lower educational institutions of mediocrity.

Given our level of development or underdevelopment, we need to work out  the number of universities and other tertiary institutions we need. How many graduates  should we produce annually or per decade? In other words, what are our requirements as a country?

Yet another level of the debate we have not explored is what do we do with the graduates we produce? What percentage can be absorbed into the public service or formal sector? What percentage do we envisage would  make a living in the informal economy? What percentage of the graduates we produce can be self- sufficient?

What mass employment plan do we have for the graduates of our education system? Should we not marry education with the world of work?

Is a country that is over-reliant on paper qualification  not doomed to remain under-developed? We cannot manufacture more universities  because there are more students who require admission; it would simply mean that with our ever exploding population, we must simply  continue establishing universities.

To me, what is most fundamental about our education is not the availability of spaces or access, it is not the level of funding or how the products of our education system are absorbed into the larger society. Next week, let’s meet to discuss what is  most fundamental.