Privatization of education is killing Nigeria – ABU VC

Professor Ibrahim Garba is the Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. In this interview, he explains, among other issues, how proliferation of private schools, especially universities, is aiding the decline in the quality of graduates and Nigeria’s education system in general. Excerpts   DT: Technology is now a driving force in the […]

Professor Ibrahim Garba is the Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. In this interview, he explains, among other issues, how proliferation of private schools, especially universities, is aiding the decline in the quality of graduates and Nigeria’s education system in general. Excerpts

 

DT: Technology is now a driving force in the development of nations across the world, what contribution is ABU making for Nigeria’s technological development?

Professor Ibrahim Garba: We are doing a lot in this area. For example, we have expanded our engineering courses to about 12. Above all, the engineers we graduate are innovative. We have since realized that most employers don’t necessarily need theories, but what the students can do with their hands through innovation.

We have to therefore change our engineering programmes towards being more of practical than theory. In developed countries, a top management staff can as well engage in practical operations, because he was trained on that.

Another area we pay serious attention on is the railways. Presently, the trains being introduced are operated by the Chinese. This is dangerous for us. The Chinese company constructing the new rail lines realized this danger and therefore sought for cooperation with any sound Nigerian university. They were introduced to ABU and presently we are working together with one of their universities that specialize in manufacturing trains.

This collaboration is leading to training of our students where we together train students to specialize in railway engineering and other areas. This development has a lot of potentials for the future of Nigeria’s railway sector. We now have 75 students in that Chinese university.

Aside the training of students, we feel that we should also train our teachers who would come back here to set up our own programmes in ABU. We now have 15 teachers doing their MSc and PhD in the Chinese university. In no distance future, we would be training other Nigerian universities’ teachers in these programmes. Through these initiatives, ABU would in no distance future take over the engineering of the railway sector instead of the Chinese.

The foregoing, coupled with the about $3m assistance from the World Bank, our drive to change the design of our engineering programmes would yield fruitful result. This would make our engineers to be innovative, taking them away from the current trend of being theoretical engineers. In all of these, we want to become a model to other universities.

 

DT: Some time ago, some doctors from one of the European countries were trained at the ABU teaching hospital on tropical diseases. This was seen as recognition of the quality of ABU’s programmes…

Garba: Yes, we now have Africa Center of Excellence in Neglected Tropical Disease and Forensic Biotechnology (ACENTDFB). The Royal Society of Biology of the United Kingdom and the Higher Council for Education and Research (HCERES) of France recently accredited the MSc and PhD programmes run by the centre. The university got the nod of the two European institutions to start the two postgraduate academic degrees with effect from September 2019 to September 2024.

This is the first set of degree programmes of this university, or any other Nigerian university, to gain international accreditation. In 2017, the MSc and PhD Biotechnology and the Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) Forensic Biotechnology programme of the center acquired full accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC).

This centre is doing forensic biotechnology. This is the first centre in Nigeria doing this programme. There is rush now from different security agencies requesting to bring their personnel for training.

One of the conditions given by the World Bank, who are assisting us, is for us to have collaboration with similar international centres. This made us to seek collaboration with the centres in England and France. They were here and have seen what we are doing. They have given us their consent.

 

DT: Alumni associations are known to be assisting the growth of universities, is that of the ABU doing same?

Garba: There is no university that does not have the need for fund. In ABU, our Alumni association is an independent body. In recent years, the association has done a lot for the university. Their work led to the construction of pedestrian flyover at our second gate, sponsored by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Former governor of Gombe State, Dankwambo, and the Plateau State governor, Lalong, have made contribution in water supply and provision of firefighting truck for our Kongo campus, respectively.

There are other governors who have also made different contributions. Former governor of Taraba State, Suntai, also constructed a lecture theatre for the Faculty of Pharmacy. The most important of the contributions being made by our Alumni is the way they use their various places of work to invite projects to ABU. This is the most important contribution as far as we are concerned.

For example, Alhaji Dauda Lawal constructed a whole building housing the department of Political Science and International Studies and furnished the building. Former governor of Bauchi, Adamu Mu’azu, also renovated the department of Architecture. Former Vice President Namadi Sambo has done similar thing. Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufa’I, also made similar contribution and was even coming to the university to teach before he became too busy. There are a lot of others.

Yet, we sometime go to well meaning Nigerians to request them to come and assist the university. It was one of these efforts that brought Alhaji Aliko Dangote to the university. He saw the nature of our hostels, which made him to construct ten blocks of students’ hostels that can accommodate about 1,000 students.

We are grateful to Alhaji Aliko Dangote. He built the new hostel for girls. However, we decided that the location is not appropriate for females; we therefore changed the status of Suleiman Hall, which is the biggest hostel in the university, to female hostel. We gave the Dangote hostel to male students.

With this development, we can now accommodate almost all our female students except those who are not interested in staying on campus.

We also constructed another hostel on our own and cumulatively the new hostels are accommodating about 3,000 students. This is the first time in 40 years that new students’ hostels were constructed in ABU. We are still making contact with our Alumni. Despite their various efforts, they still need to do more considering the number and caliber of the Alumni members.

For example, in President Buhari’s first tenure, there were 12 governors that were ABU graduates and many ministers. Presently, there are about eight ministers that finished from ABU. If all of them would use the opportunity they have to assist in developing the university, we would be far above where we are today. However, we are not relenting. We will keep on following them to do the needful for the university.

 

DT: The Central Bank of Nigeria’s Centre of Excellence built in the university was commissioned twice, why?

Garba: As you know, university is not a place for politics. The most important thing is that the centre has been commissioned and we are using it. Actually, it was not commissioned twice. When the centres were completed in different parts of the country, the time coincided with the time President Buhari was campaigning for his second term. It was agreed that he would go round to commission all of them. He was not able to come to Zaria, but has commissioned that of Nsukka.

Since our own was completed and we wanted to start using it, we requested that they should allow us to start using it. This was why it was handed over to us for the first time. What President Buhari did was just the actual commissioning. So, it was not opened twice.

The centre was meant to improve our Business Administration, Banking, Finance, Accounting and Economics departments. Central Bank has the expertise and the know-how and have realized the weaknesses in our system, hence their drive to strengthen us.

The centre has assisted us to decongest our Institute for Administration in Kongo, Tudun Wada, Zaria. Business Administration and Accounting have been moved to the centre to form the ABU Business School with the Economics department, as there was no space to expand the institute.

 

DT: ABU was known for frequent uprisings, especially students riots and demonstrations, but it seems the university is now enjoying relative peace…

Garba: Good leadership is key to achievement of peace. God always stands with the truth and He is the one that has been assisting us.  We try to follow due process and give everybody his or her rights, including the students. We also run an open administration. I think these have assisted in bringing about the peaceful atmosphere that we are enjoying.

 

DT: Some lecturers in Nigerian universities are becoming notorious for demanding sex in exchange for marks. ABU recently sacked some people because of this…

Garba: Every parent blessed with children, especially female, is always thinking of how to ensure their upkeep and upbringing. The university is not like secondary school, as students are free on the assumption that they are mature. Since we don’t have the right to restrict the liberties given to the students by the system, we put in place measures that would protect the students.

However, the decay in our moral training is alarming. Parents no longer correct their wards where they go wrong. Children are now the ones controlling their parents. Some of these students are over pampered. Some parents have gotten illicit funds; therefore they release this money to their children without control. You can have a student with money in her account that is far above her lecturer’s salary. You see students driving expensive cars or using mobile phone that is even more expensive than that of the Vice Chancellor.

All these make the students lazy and they therefore resort to other means to pass their exam. This makes them to even take themselves to some bad elements among the lecturers to pass. However, we’ve put stringent measures in place to punish anyone involved in this bad behaviour.

The students know the places to take their complaints to. At the departmental level, there are level coordinators and the head of department. There is dean of the Faculty and a whole unit for students’ welfare, which is Students’ Affairs Units. There is even Guidance and Counselling Unit. Students can report any abuse or attempt to abuse to any of these units for protection and appropriate actions.

However, as I said earlier, the decay in moral training coupled with attitudes of some parents make eradication of sexual abuse in universities difficult. In ABU, we are taking punitive measures and we will continue to do that. It is democracy; therefore we take diligent steps to prove all reported cases. We urge the students and their parents to continue to make use of all these channels to report any abuse or attempt for abuse.

 

DT: How is the issue of cultism in ABU?

Garba: In ABU, we have largely succeeded in eliminating cultism on campus. No matter how minor evidence is on cultism, we follow it up and the punishment is expulsion. We tell them this right from matriculation.

 

DT: Host communities of federal institutions often accuse the institutions of neglect. How is your relationship like with your host communities?

Garba: There is good relationship between the communities and the university even before my coming. They benefit a lot from the university in terms of employment, provision of medical facilities, water supply among others. The communities are important to us. Recently, some of the communities’ schools requested for some facilities that we have replaced like computers et cetera.

 

DT: What do you think is the implication of the proliferation of private universities to Nigeria’s education system?

Garba: I am answering this question as Ibrahim Garba who has been in the university for a long time, and not as Vice Chancellor of the ABU. To say the truth, the policy of making university a business venture is what is aiding the decline of the education sector. All these private universities have no teachers of their own. They come to public universities to recruit our lecturers on part time basis.

They are trying to make education to be for the highest bidder. It is becoming a situation where people with money would come and invest for returns on their investment. This policy of education as business leads to many shady deals like passing students who are not qualified. Decline in public schools took us to this unfortunately situation.

Some Nigerians are of the belief that anyone who has no university education is half-educated. This is not the practice all over the world. Everybody cannot go to university. Some of the founding fathers of Nigeria who established most of the universities did not go beyond secondary school level. But can you compare them with some of the PhD holders of today in terms of their thinking, foresight and eloquence?

Therefore, university education is not for all. It is for people who have the talent. Every year, out of the about 1.7million students who sit for JAMB, only about 100,000 indicated interest to go to polytechnics or colleges of education. The rest wanted to go to universities and the carrying capacity of Nigerian universities is not more than 600,000. This is a serious dilemma.

Students don’t want to go to polytechnics that are designed to train youths on entrepreneurship; to become self-reliant. They, as well, don’t want to go to colleges of education to be trained as teachers. Most of the students you see in colleges of education were there, because they have no other choice. This is why we have teachers without the requisite knowledge, because it is not their choice.

Most of the private universities are ‘cash-and-carry’. They take our staff and stop them from performing optimally in their primary place of assignment. You can have a lecturer teaching in many universities at the same time, yet the policy makers do not find it necessary to look at this policy again.

Why universities cannot stop the shuttling of lecturers is the fact that lecturers are scarce. If you restrict their movement, they can leave you and go to other universities and you may end up requesting him/her to come to your university as visiting lecturer.

 

DT: The attitude of some lecturers in delaying the graduation of postgraduate students is said to be driving many people away from ABU. How true is this?

Garba: Things have changed for the good in our postgraduate programmes. The university is now focusing more on postgraduate programmes. We have put measures in place to ensure that students graduate as and when due. For unserious students, there is absolutely nothing we can do.

Students are now being asked to report lecturers that are not discharging their duties, not only in postgraduate programmes but even in undergraduate courses. However, it is not every report about our lecturers that we just act upon; we have to investigate to find out the truth.

Our postgraduate programmes are now about 539 compared to only about 100 undergraduate programmes. We have about 30,000 postgraduate students and every year thousands apply. Therefore, it is a section of the university that we are taking very seriously.