Dele Sobowale

Show me a lecturer including top class professors who worked in any of our public universities and who did not line his pockets with proceeds from the sale of Course Notes and I will show you a saint yet to be discovered.
Perhaps because I went to university in the United States, under the African Scholarship Programme for American Universities, I never came across the term Course Notes.

Even a Junior year spent in the Middle East, while taking a course in Near East and Judaic Studies and mixing with university students from all over the world, each on a mission, yielded no single instance where students in any university were required to purchase Course Notes from their lecturers as a mandatory condition for obtaining a passing grade. Apart from textbooks which were, in any case optional, any other extra reading materials were either available in the library or provided by the lecturer to all the students free of charge.

I became aware of the corrupt practices associated with Course Notes about eight years after returning to Nigeria with the full intention of staying here – irrespective of the difficulties compared to the easy life in the United States. And, it came as a minor irritation – which I attributed to the fact that the request came from a Northern university.
I had sent my sister-in-law to the University of Maiduguri for a degree course in Education.

All the necessary fees were paid and all the recommended books were purchased when she went off. She returned home four weeks after, for a short break and requested for additional money apart from her monthly allowance.
“What for”? I asked in absolute ignorance.
“For Course Notes, sir,” she replied; also in perfect innocence.

“Why do you need to pay for Course Notes; and your lecturers supposed to teach you all you should know about the course and what happens to those who cannot afford the Course Notes”?
“They will not pass”. She replied with such certainty as to send a shiver up my spine.
Thereafter, she then proceeded to give me an elementary lesson on the curse of Course Notes in Nigerian universities and how pervasive it had become in UNINAID.

Yet, something in me could not believe that it was a national phenomenon. I was a prejudiced enough southerner to dismiss the episode as something which could only happen in the backward North. So for her, her brother and my nephew who followed her in quick succession, I paid every time for Course Notes without which the most brilliant and the most diligent student would not pass a course of study at the university.

They were not the only kids in the family for whom I had to pat for Course Notes in tertiary institutions. Later, a nephew admitted to Yaba College of Technology, which had been invaded by lecturers from Nigerian universities provided me with the first hint that this evil might not be just northern based. He, too, came home shortly after starting his studies to request for money for Course Notes.

Their new lecturer who had crossed over from a university had made it clear that “you can write whatever you want at exam time, but you wont pass this course without buying a Course Note”. Like all academic dictators, he had set a price which was non-negotiable. Still something in me refused to accept that the first generation universities would condone this corrupt system which was running scholarship.

My real baptism of fire came when two of my daughters were admitted to the University of Ibadan – one to read Medicine and the junior sister went to read Engineering. Both had the best preparations any parent can give to his kids. They both attended Adrao International Nursery and Primary School at Victoria Island and Queens College, Yaba. Their scores at WAEC and JAMB placed them among the top five percent; so they had direct entry each time.

It was from the College of Medicine, Ibadan, that I fully realized how totally corrupt the Course Note system had become. Only a small percentage of those admitted for Medicine will eventually graduate as medical doctors for various reasons. Some might find the course more difficult than they imagined in secondary school; others might have been pushed into medicine by their parents who wanted a doctor in the family; some drop out when funds run out.

However, there is a vast number of students who are shut out of the profession because they could not afford to buy the Course Notes prescribed by the professors of Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Radiology, Surgery etc.

As usual, my daughter requested for  money for Course Notes in one of those courses, after procuring all the books recommended for the course. Books for medicine are the most expensive of any course at the university. I should know because my daughters have graduated with degrees in Medicine, Civil Engineering and Law – the most expensive courses. My first reaction was to ask for the name of the Professor teaching the course.

I received the shock of my life when it turned out to be a well-known and globally recognised academic who was involved in the racket. The man had been a visiting professor to some leading teaching hospitals and research centres all over the world and had even done some consulting for the World Health Organisation, WHO. Yet, medical students at the University of Ibadan were still being held to ransom by a WHO-grade professor of Medicine in Nigeria.

What he wanted was equal to the cost of all the books put together and, although he did not declare his stand as openly as the YabaTech lecturer, those who had been referred before were quick to warn my daughter to “forget about studying, just buy the Course Notes.”
For me there was an ethical dilemma involved in the matter. I had raised my kids with the understanding that they will not receive any improper support from me in their careers.

I will pay any price affordable for their education but I will not support any corrupt practices for then to get ahead. Suddenly, I was confronted with a situation in which a brilliant girl might be referred because of an avaricious professor. Raising an alarm would put my daughter’s career in jeopardy as other lecturers selling Course Notes would mark her down for punishment. Reluctantly, I paid; not only on that course but others as well.

This story would not be complete without mentioning the “Boy who did not become doctor”. He too started out to be a doctor and he was regarded by his colleagues as the best student in the class. As a matter of fact, virtually all his classmates wanted to have him as their study partner. It was as if, at birth, he had a doctor’s stethoscope hanging on his neck. He was on State scholarship. His father provided the extra money for support. Then, his father died. His mother, a petty trader, could not afford the Shylock prices of Course Notes. He “failed” three subjects because he could not afford to pay for Course Notes and dropped out of College of Medicine.

Only God knows how many dullards have been moved forward because they could afford to pay and only the Almighty knows how many brilliant students have been forced out of universities because they could not afford to pay.

The Nigerian university system is probably the only one in which First Class might not mean brilliant but the ability to pay in cash and KIND.
Poser: Has anybody conducted a study to determine how many students graduating with First Class have gone on to brilliant careers in their fields of endeavour?