By Aare Afe Babalola, SAN,

This is the third and concluding part of this piece which, last week, made a strong case for adequate funding of universities

Committee of registrars of Nigerian universities: The Committee of Registrars of Nigerian Universities sent a memo to the government on this matter in 1996. The first of the solutions proposed was to request universities to provide professional accounting that would show what it costs exactly to provide its services.

For instance, at the University of Lagos, what does it cost the university to provide X number of medical students in their 151-semester study?

This requires that all costs elements (e.g. Biochemistry 101) per X number of students per semester must be computed. This means that it will be possible to determine what it costs to educate a medical student at the University of Lagos. Now, if the government says anyone who goes for medical school need not pay, what it means is that government is disbursing to the university exactly what it costs the university to provide the service for each student.

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Otherwise, both government and College authorities are engaged in a murderous game of make­belief for the training of doctors.

The Registrars’ suggested solution in 1996 are still valid today and are based on the following principles:

Parents who can pay fees should be allowed to pay instead of preventing them by declaring a free education that we do not match with commensurate financial backing;

No student who qualifies for admission should be denied higher education merely because his/her inability to pay fees;

All tiers of government from the local council to the federal government should be allowed to be part of the fee-paying process;

The private sector should be allowed to be part of the scheme.

Guidelines suggested by the Registrars for the implementation of these principles. The Federal Government may provide scholarships on merit to say 30 per cent of those who properly gain admission to the university, to cover 100 per cent of tuition. Tuition will of course be different from institution to institution as indicated above.

Additional loans may be granted to cover a proportion of another cost of living and books, while parents or guardians take care of the rest, which will be minimal. Again, scholarships may be granted for say 75 per cent of tuition for the next 30 per cent on merit. And additional loans may be granted to cover another segment of the cost of living and books.

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State government should also follow suit by granting scholarships and loans according to their own criteria to cover the remaining 40 per cent of the population of admitted students from their states. local councils may grant scholarships and loans to indigent students from their local council communities. Local authorities are best at determining criteria for indigence and membership of a local council.

The Federal Government may again grant scholarships and loans to those from disadvantaged areas who have not been adequately covered by 1-4 above. Universities themselves may grant scholarships based on their own criteria. The above guidelines will work on the following conditions: That no one will benefit, in the same year, from more than one award of scholarship and from loans to cover the same item of expenditure; That universities publish verifiable and approved costs of tuition and other charges; Continuation of scholarships and loans will depend on continued good academic standing; That students take the first step to applying for these scholarships and loans, and Each Registrar’s Office will have a unit clarifying applications yearly on the basis of good academic standing.

It is my view that the above recommendations should be given due consideration. We cannot continue to pretend that the government alone can fund education. So long as this view holds, Nigeria will continue to suffer a problem of the low-quality educational system.

Vanguard