In the light of the numerous challenges facing Nigerian universities, the immediate past Director of Distance Learning Centre (DLC), University of Ibadan, Professor Bayo Okunade has said that the way to confront and tackle these drawbacks is not the establishment of more universities.
The Professor of Political Science at the University of Ibadan, made this statement in reaction to a recent statement made by the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed on the need to create more universities in order to tackle the challenge of limited admission spaces in the country’s tertiary institutions.
CEOAfrica had reported earlier in week that the NUC Boss had blamed the difficult university admission process on the few numbers of universities in the country and had expressed hope that 100 more universities will be created in five years in order to absorb more candidates seeking admission.
Speaking at an interview on Community Today, an online television programme on CEOAfrica, Professor Okunade disagreed with the idea of establishing more universities in the country, stating that such an idea is impracticable, unrealistic and detrimental to the university system, given the poor and underfunded state of the existing universities.
The Former Director of UI DLC, Prof Bayo Okunade (R) and Mr Cletus Ilobanafor (L) at the Interview
He said “I do not believe that Nigeria, which is unable to run the existing Federal universities, has the capacity to float hundred more universities. That would be wishful thinking because the resources are not there; the lecturers are not there. The resources available in terms of manpower, is overstressed and overstrained.
“What is the fate of the universities that were recently created? In the last three years Nigeria has created around 20 new universities. The ex-President Jonathan created around 12 and under the present administration, there has been an announcement of the creation of eight new private universities.
“Of course, there is little to show for the existing universities, The point I’m making is that the way to go is not to continue investing in mortar and bricks but to look elsewhere in solving the problem of access and equity in the provision of university education in Nigeria. Even if we are to create more universities, there are certain types of universities that we must create, not the conventional ones.”
Professor Okunade who is a member of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) and the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE), opined that rather than committing resources to establish more private universities, the Federal Government can invest more in Distance Learning Education or establish more specialised universities.
Although he noted that many specialised universities in Nigeria offer other courses outside their areas of speciality, the Professor however said it is important to ensure these specialised universities focus on the essence of their creation. He said “Many courses in the Social sciences and Arts can be run on Open and Distance Learning, so we can invest in it and also divert effort to science and technology instead of just floating conventional universities. We can go into specialised universities. We know that some specialised universities offer other unrelated courses but we have to ensure they are specialised in the real sense of it.”
While noting that practical-based programmes can be run in specialised schools, the staunch advocate of Distance Education further stated that non-practical-based disciplines like social sciences and humanities can be collapsed into the ODL mode which will require much less funding than operating a conventional university.
Prof Okunade (Seated R) with Journalists present at the Interview
Speaking about the challenge of access into Nigerian universities, Professor Okunade stated that the ODL can conveniently solve the problem of the teeming population seeking university admission. He noted that the ODL mode has the capacity to accommodate all the admission seekers in the country, seeing as the mode of education does not require a physical space to operate.
He said “NOUN (National Open University of Nigeria) celebrates that it has about 150,000 students. It can actually have more than 1 or 2 million students. The Open University in England has about 1.4 million students all over the world. The Open University in Delhi has 3 million students and there are other Open Universities with 10 million students. So, this goes to show that if we have a well-designed, well-run and well-funded Distance Learning Centre, it can accommodate all the Nigerian students.”
Prof Okunade however noted that the downside of establishing Distance Learning Education in Nigeria is the difficulty in obtaining a licence to validate the operation of ODL programme – a situation which accounts for the few number of ODL institutions operating in the country. “I have to say that it is very easy to get a licence to run a conventional university than getting validated as a distance learning centre.
“That is part of the rigour that goes into it. That is why we still have only two distance learning centres in the Nigeria. There were six originally but in the past two years, we now have two. And out of the two, one is offering only three courses while the other one has approval for only one course. So, distance learning is so regulated,” he said.
The former UI DLC Boss further reiterated that establishing more universities is not advisable as it would unnecessarily gulp more resources. He emphasized that the best method to tackle admission challenges is to invest into ODL education. “The way to go is to see how we can run the ODL mode to solve the problem of access and equity. If we continue to establish private universities, this can only guarantee access to university education to the children of the rich while the children of the poor will not have access. The only way millions of nigerians can have access to university education every year at a reduced cost is through ODL mode,” Professor Okunade stressed.
