‘With good governance, private schools cannot thrive’
There is this widely held belief that the standard of education is falling. What is your view on that? I don’t believe so. I don’t believe standard of education is falling. We must know what we are saying. What is falling is not the standard of education, what is falling is provision of infrastructure, things […]
There is this widely held belief that the standard of education is falling. What is your view on that?
I don’t believe so. I don’t believe standard of education is falling. We must know what we are saying. What is falling is not the standard of education, what is falling is provision of infrastructure, things that students require to do well. This is what is falling because the lecturers that are teaching in Nigerian universities are lecturers who can teach anywhere in the world. That was why before Obasanjo came, we had a large incidence of brain drain, lecturers in Nigeria went to different parts of the world because they are teachers who can teach well, given the required facilities, laboratories and these things were not available.
Do you believe government should be blamed for the lack of infrastructure?
Yes, absolutely. The British colonial masters in 1948 established the University of Ibadan and University of Ghana, Legon, and built all these buildings we met. We met the Melanbi Hall. Melanbi Hall was there when we, in the primary school, made an excursion to that place in 1959 and when I was there, I said: ‘This place, I must come and study here by the grace of God,’ and Allah accepted it. Then, in 1969 when I first went to the university, I was put in the Melanbi Hall. There is also Trenchard Hall. They are halls of residence. All these were built by the colonial masters and they put them on four-four storey structure. When Tafawa Balewa came, he added some structures. He even added a new university, known as University of Lagos. Obafemi Awolowo also added a new university and Sardauna also established the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. But those who impoverished our education are essentially the military. People said they did that deliberately because they didn’t want people to be enlightened so that they could continue to rule. I don’t think so. I just know that it was not their priority.
What’s your assessment of NUC in terms of infrastructural provision and monitoring of universities?
NUC to me, I’ve been working with them since they started, they used me for accreditation as Chairman and as member and they also used me for development of their curriculum. I know how they work. They are the hope of Nigeria in terms of standard. They ensure that the minimum academic standards are fulfilled in the areas of staffing and staff mix by rank. That’s how many lecturers would be senior lecturers, assistant lecturers, how many should be in the cadre of Lecturer 2. How many should be in the cadre of readership to professorship. If a programme doesn’t have their mix, such a programme cannot be fully accredited. So they are very good in that. They have developed the minimum academic standards that all universities should follow. So they are maintaining our quality, one can commend them for that. They are also putting pressure on government to increase the facilities in universities in Nigeria.
Do you think the private sector’s incursion into university system is of benefit to this country?
The advent of private school started during the military regime but it died. But when Obasanjo came back, he encouraged the practice and private institutions are doing their best as we can see that private secondary schools are also doing their best in terms of standard, quality of teachers, and quality of environment even in primary schools. But you see such a thing would thrive when there is no good government. If there is a good government, it should be able to make provisions for standard schools and if everybody has access to a standard school, nobody would go to a private school. So that’s why we must praise states that are improving education like Osun, Kano, and Lagos. Because the carrying capacity of private schools at all levels- from infant to nursery, primary, secondary, basic to university, is inadequate. They can’t carry our people and even if they can, they would be charging school fees that would be prohibitive to parents. So their facilities would not be for the best brains, their facilities would be for those who have the wherewithal to send their children there. But in order to catch the best brains, it has to be a place that is level, free more or less or that is affordable. That is why if a government is incurring debt to build structures that are better than what the private schools are building, it is better for us in Nigeria.Then we move on to the universities. Universities which are supposed to admit students, the quality of teachers there is very high. You can’t get the quality of teachers in the federal or state universities in any private university because the universities have grown and have allowed people to grow with them. But what is the government doing in enhancing, increasing the carrying capacity of these universities? I mentioned colonial period and Balewa period in terms of infrastructure in the university. Government should not be building, scattering one-storey building around. Without being immodest, I was building three floors at Al-Hikmah when I was a vice chancellor, for everything I was building before University of Ilorin woke up and realised that they, too, can be building four floors. They were not building three or four floors until when I went to Al-Hikmah for two years. If I am head of government in Nigeria, when I was building three floors, I would not be building three floors, I would be building 15 floors so that a whole faculty would be in a floor and the population of students would not be 20, 000. It would be 40, 000 or 50, 000. Once you are doing that, you are reducing the number of people who are writing JAMB every year, giving money to JAMB every year, once you are doing that, you are reducing the number of best brains who are going to college of education or polytechnic simply because they didn’t have a stake in the university.
Nigeria is bedevilled with so many problems, where do you think we have got it wrong as a nation?
We’ve got it wrong where accountability, probity and integrity are sacrificed for vanity. Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity. So corruption is the bane, greed is the bane, kleptomania is the bane. Anybody after stealing money in Nigeria, instead of him building houses around and creating employment for people, will go to US or Britain to buy a flat for about 500, 000 pounds, multiply that by 300, is that not N1.5bn? Whereas if he has the money by legitimate means, either because he is careful with what they pay him or the allowances he has and he is putting up structures, he is putting some people in the labour market to be on job and in that way, the person would have money to pay school fees of his child. That’s why I am talking about kleptomania. The moment we begin to fight corruption, abandon corruption, everybody will have.
What was your impression on the offer of public lecture by students of Osun State?
In the beginning, I wasn’t enthusiastic because by nature, I am a shy person. I didn’t give a consideration but after a while I thought that these boys and girls wanted some encouragement for their peers, contemporaries and confidants. And I said: ‘Ok go ahead.’ I asked them a question: Are you looking for money or honour? They said they are looking for honour. If it is honour, it is okay. I can recollect when I was a student in the University of Ibadan, I was publishing a journal, Al-Iman, where professors from Arabic and Islamic Studies and other Muslim professors in the areas of History published during their life time and I showed them some examples of the journal which I’ve produced over time. I then said maybe it was a sort of pay back. And you can see how successful the occasion turned out to be with an incisive and deep assessment of my humble self.