Oyebode
Prof. Akindele Oyebode is the Head, Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, University of Lagos. The renowned scholar, who has been an academic for over 40 years, talks on the falling standard of education in this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU
Nigerian educational institutions have recorded low ratings on the international scale. What is responsible?
It is frequently said that standards are falling and that our education sector is one of the worst in the world. I don’t think that is altogether correct. What one can concede is the exponential rise in the number of pupils and students in schools and higher educational institutions. The upsurge in numbers has not been accompanied with requisite increase in the number of teachers, as well as facilities, required space in the classrooms, laboratories and libraries.
Forty years ago, when I joined this university, we had tutorials and I didn’t have more than 16 students in my class. Now, I teach classes of about 300 students. We don’t have tutorials anymore because we don’t have the facilities. We don’t even have enough teachers! I’m the only professor in my department.
What is the implication of this trend?
Nigeria must learn to put its money where its mouth is. We must improve the education sector. A nation cannot rise beyond its teachers or beyond its level of education. You measure a nation’s greatness by its ability to transmit knowledge and values from one generation to the next. That continuity must be there. I know that we have more than 120 universities, compared with when we were kids and had only four universities. The over 120 universities we have now are in varying stages of unpreparedness. When compared with other universities out there, we are not in the race.
I was pleasantly surprised a few months ago when the University of Lagos was adjudged the leading university in Nigeria and the 16th in Africa, and we still don’t number among the first 500 in the world. So, we still have a long way to go.
The facilities here are not 21st century compliant and I frequently remind myself of one of the universities I attended many years ago, which had 99 libraries. You don’t have such facilities here. The main library of that university then – 40 years ago – had five million volumes. You can’t compete because you can’t give what you don’t have. So, a lot of work, stock and investment still have to be put in education.
Remember, when Tony Blair, the then British Prime Minister, was asked what the priorities of his government were, he said, “First, education; second, education; third, education.” And if Britain still believes that education should be of topmost priority, you know that Nigeria has no choice but to really invest everything in education because it is these universities, polytechnics and colleges of education that produce the high-level manpower that are necessary to transform this country.
How would you describe efforts of government to revive the sector?
I hear noises being made about a transformation agenda. Key to transformation is superior intellect. These countries that we admire all over the world are where they are because of huge investment in education. No amount is too much to make sure that we are very competitive in the type of education that we have.
I just returned from a visit to Soochow University in China. Using Soochow as an example in terms of structures, if you look at the university library alone, you will know that ours is just mimicry. We are just making the best of a bad situation.
Our kids now go abroad – even to the next-door Ghana! You can imagine how much we expend. And if you look at (University of) Legon, it does not have superior facilities compared to UNILAG. Not because I’m in UNILAG, but UNILAG is not inferior to some of the universities Nigerians run to.
What are the indices for measuring the standard of education?
Technically or empirically, the standard of universities does not fall short of the socio-economic level of development in every country. There are things not taken for granted in advanced economies, like facilities such as power, water, and health. These things are not discussed; they are given. In Nigeria, we are not yet there. We generate less than 4000MW of electricity. By the time we generate, say 20,000MW, maybe we will be approaching the bend we have to turn. When pipe-borne water flows regularly, when health facilities meet the minimum requirements for life, then we can start talking. We are not there yet; let’s not pretend that we are now an industrialised economy. We are not.
You might view this as afro-pessimism, but the truth is that Nigeria is not in the best of times. Look at all the afflictions in contemporary Nigeria; that is why many of our young ones are voting with their feet; they are searching for fortunes elsewhere. And when the majority of young people want to leave, looking for visas, that’s a massive vote of no confidence in their own country. It is not a positive sign at all.
CULLED FROM: PUNCH NEWSPAPERS
January 13, 2013 by LEKE BAIYEWU
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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