Nigeria’s university system failing – Soludo

A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Charles Soludo, has declared Nigeria’s university system as failing.
Soludo, who was keynote speaker at the Seventh Founders Day lecture of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria on Saturday, however, said the continuous failing of the Nigerian university is not entirely that of the system.
He said the failure is aided by the nature of the Nigerian society that does not enable the citizenship attributes learnt in the university, especially in a development university such as AUN, to be put to use.
Soludo, who was governor of the CBN from May 2004 to June 2009, said universities could play better roles than they are playing now if the global template for education and development are properly mixed with the specific realities of the Nigerian situation.
He said: “Education is the pivot of development in the world.
“The university is the place for community service.
“To earn a degree, a student must be found worthy in character and learning.
“But the type of education we have is more of socialization of knowledge than citizenship.”
Soludo said citizenship consciousness is not something to be preached but to be lived, adding: “In Nigeria, we preach to people to become good citizens.
“But the environment does not mete for development conscious citizenship.
“So with the best of education, nothing will happen in this country.”
But before even churning out the graduate who are citizenship conscious, Soludo said more than 60 per cent of them are not even employable, adding: “This type of education can’t move us forward.
“Our university system lacking in the kind of development consciousness that can move us forward.”
Soludo said based on the fact that there is an agreement that the world must move in one direction with the usage of same textbooks, curriculum and Internet in university education, there are great implications for the capacity of a university to claim to be developmental.
He added: “Which society does a university seek to develop?
“A university seeking to be developmental, can it have a different curriculum for development?
“If it does not, what can it do to be developmental?
“Which labour market is it developing its students for?
“It is not easy for a university to be different because they are all now training for the same labour market.
“The university in the 21st century in a globalized world is getting towards a convergence of curriculum.
“Therefore, the scope for a national university system to be uniquely different is diminishing.
“And that is not the way to go.
“The way a university mainstreams citizenship consciousness will help define whether it is developmental or not.
“The motto for the university should be: education with development consciousness.
“The larger context of the society is the one in which they are going to work.
“When they get out, if the environment in which they are going to operate does not promote common citizenship, then the environment will limit them.
“No country in the world has development without a strong sense of citizenship.
“In a state like Nigeria where the issue is still whether we are still a country or nation, it becomes a major issue.
“If it is national development and you don’t have nationalities willing to develop nationally, development will still not happen.
“Nigeria has a major citizenship question.
“There are not many countries in the world that have been able to develop without a larger section claiming the country as theirs.”
Soludo said the major issues limiting citizenship consciousness in Nigeria include the quota system, state of origin.
He said: “Our educational system going down the drain.
“Even federal universities are dominated by people from the area where they located. ”
Entry is not entirely based on qualification.”
He therefore advocated for the dumping of the state of origin for state of residency, pointing out that even the allocation from the federal purse is based on the number of persons in a particular state and not their state of origin.
He, however, said it is curious that even the state governors do not strictly apply the resources collected based on the number of persons in their states but go on to segregate by eliminating those not from their state benefiting from the allocation.
Soludo then told the staff and student: “For the university to become relevant, most of research must pertain to national development and treat issues of national development.
“The marginal contribution of each person too high than for you to abdicate it.
“Mentoring job, community work, participation in national debate, multi tasking are things you can’t afford to gloss over.”
In her welcome address, the President of AUN, Prof. Margee Ensign, said the essence of the Founder’s Day is to honor the founder of the institution, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and also tell the world what the staff and students have been up to in the past one year.
Among those that attended the occasion were Abubaka, Alhaji Ahmed Joda and Chief Peter Okocha.
Those honored included Abubakar and students with 3.5 grade under the Honours Society.
Other categories of awards were staff merit award and Community Service Award.