By Ikenna Asomba & Kayode Babatunde
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| Jimi Kayode, HOD Journalism Department, LASUAASOC |
Amidst Federal Government’s concerted efforts to ensure the teeming secondary school leavers and youths gain increased access to university education through the establishment of nine new conventional universities in February 2011, worries and criticisms have continued to trail the decision.
As the nation rolled out the drums to celebrate its 52nd independence anniversary penultimate October 1, 2012, Head, Department of Journalism, Lagos State University-Adebola Adegunwa School of Communication (LASUAASOC), Olujimi Kayode has argued that the establishment of the nine new ivory towers may not address the rot bedeviling the nation’s education, its economic growth and development.
However, he noted that the country should establish or upgrade its Polytechnics to specialized universities and de-emphazise traditional courses such as engineering, law, medicine, accountancy, banking & finance and a host of others.
Even though most pundits argue that the National Universities Commission’s approved 500 admission quota for each of the new universities makes little or no impact to salvage the plight of the over 500,000 candidates that are not likely to secure admission despite having the cut-off marks stipulated by the Federal Government in the last Universities Tertiary Matriculation Examination, Kayode, who was Director of Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, has a different view.
According to Kayode, who spoke to NIGERIANCOMPATRIOT in
an exclusive interview, the pertinent issue is not the number of
students admitted, but the quality of those who were admitted after
graduation, which he said can only be engendered by the establishment
or upgrading of Nigeria's polytechnics to 'Specialized Universities,'
rather than building more conventional universities.
The old good days
Recalling the old good days, between 1948 until a
point in the late 1980's, the journalism teacher noted that gone were the days when foreigners stream to
the country for quality education.
He said: “In our days at the University of Lagos
(UNILAG), we have the Bangladeshis, Sierra
Leonians, South Africans, Britons, Americans, Zimbabweans Kenyans,
Togolese and even Ghanians studying with us in this country, because
they value our education system. Today, even with the proliferation
of universities, it's now a commonplace to see Nigerian parents send
their children to neighbouring Ghana, Benin and Togo to acquire
education. This is an irony! And often times, I have pondered on how
we could trace back our missing link and get our priorities right.
“I think we
got it wrong when we tried to liberalize the university system for
all manner of students to come in. Unfortunately, we opened the door
for everybody without restructuring the curricula to care for various
manner of students coming in.”
Setting the
priority right
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| Kayode buttressing a point |
“As an
academic, I'm not concerned about the ruling political party in the
country. My concern is for us to get the education sector right.
Because when this sector is right, one can beat his chest in
anticipation of an improved economy, which will come about by the
high number of self-employed graduates our ivory towers will
churn-out annually.”
In an
emotion-laden voice, the don asked: “What's wrong in say, having a
Bachelors Degree in skilled-based vocational courses like Catering,
Fashion Designing, Barbing, Hair Dressing, Plumbing, Welding,
Arts/Craft and their likes. We have been getting it wrong by the
undue emphasis placed on conventional degrees like Law, Philosophy,
Engineering Medicine, Physics and their likes. I'm not trying to
denigrate these courses, but the high time we establish or upgrade
our polytechnics to specialized universities to suit into our basic
needs as a nation, the better our chances of making the list of top
economies of the world.”
HND/BA, Bsc.
dichotomy
Kayode also stated that another problem dragging the nation's
education sector behind is the unnecessary dichotomy placed between
certificates acquired in polytechnics and universities.
“Sometime
ago, FG came up with the idea of upgrading about five polytechnics
into universities. This is the easiest means of
establishing the specialized universities. Rather than spending huge
amount of money revolving round same cycle why not invest into all
Federal polytechnics, giving them infrastructural uplift and
converting them into specialized universities.”
He reiterated that if this is done, it will lead
to an improved skilled youth population, since not everybody must be
bookish to undergo the traditional courses offered in our ivory
towers.
Degree consciousness
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| Jimi Kayode |
Because Nigerians are degree conscious, Kayode held
that, “by the time you award degrees on these vocational
skilled-based courses, our youths will go into it and become highly
productive. As it is common to see a university graduate who studied
Physics not able to weld common metals together, will it not be nice
to specifically award university degrees in welding? Since we love
degrees so much, FG should also design a curricula for new
universities seeking licenses to operate based on these skilled-based
courses. At least, the scenario where our graduates after spending
4-6 years come out without acquiring any skill to be self-employed
will be curtailed to a large extent.”
As Nigeria is a populous nation, he also argued that
the so-called multinational companies can't absorb the teeming
graduates churned out from our ivory towers annually. “But with the
specialized universities in existence, the youths, which makes up the
manpower of the country, will become highly productive when they get
trained in them, knowing fully well that nobody can push them to the
walls or look down on their qualification after graduation,” Kayode held.
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