Nigeria’s Education Conundrum

According to the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Nigeria was the third non-European Union country sending the highest number of students to the UK in recent times. In 2009/10, it had 16,680 students in UK higher institutions and in 2010/11, there were 17,585 Nigerian students in those institutions – ranking only behind India and China.

These figures hold different significance for Nigeria and the UK as it holds for different institutions and analysts within Nigeria. For the UK, this year-on-year growth is evidence that marketing efforts in Nigeria by its schools are yielding fruits and Nigeria is now one of the major sources of income for its higher institutions. For the Nigerian government, the UK, in addition to being a top destination for foreign exchange out of Nigeria, is also one of the top recipients of its students seeking premium education outside its shores. Other destinations include the USA, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Hungary and Ghana.

For the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), if as expected it monitors these outflows, this must represent a remarkable movement in the country’s current account and one that will impact the country’s balance of trade with the UK. Ideally, it should raise no eyebrows if there are significant inward returns from this expenditure. The trend, however, does not suggest that Nigeria’s economy significantly benefits from the resultant output. Some of the eventual graduates do not make it back to Nigeria and those who make it back have not been timeously absorbed into the productive sectors of the economy to justify the huge expenditure.

For the National Universities Commission (NUC), Nigerian universities and their administrators, it is an indictment and evidence of the failure to respond in sufficient measure to the demand for higher education in the country, such that Nigeria is now a marketing turf for foreign universities, including those from non-English speaking countries. The pretence and promises of the dons that run these institutions are now openly vulnerable to truth and experience – the reality is that “our best brains” can no longer provide sustainable succession plans in our higher institutions; would-be successors have increasingly looked beyond our shores without returning. It is now a cheap exercise to continue blaming governments in Nigeria for the near collapse of institutions and values. This is not as if any credible defence can be mustered by the various governments we have been blest with. Yes, we know we have been misruled, corrupted and abused by all sorts of pseudo-leaders who have either been unwilling or unprepared to rule right from independence to date, but what contributions or research have emanated from our ivory towers to stem the tide?

With the recent increase in tuition fees in the UK rising up to £9000 for Home Students per session and more for foreign students, average annual fees for Nigerian students would be about £10,000 with additional annual expenses of £2000 for feeding and accommodation. It then means that in the last two academic sessions, going by HESA’s figures, Nigeria has paid out at least £411,180,000 (N102,795,000,000 at £250 to the naira) in two years to UK higher institutions for the education of a tiny percentile of Nigeria’s student population. This is in addition to what is paid to other countries. I imagine these movements must be of concern to the irrepressible CBN governor, notwithstanding the depth or health of the nation’s coffers.

Figures from the Budget Office of the Federation in Nigeria confirms the proposed combined allocations in the 2013 budget to the five federal universities in Benin, Ibadan, Lagos, Nsukka, and Zaria at precisely N64,075,077,698 (£256,300,310). From figures available from the Universities Matriculation Examination Brochure 2000-2001, these five universities are about the largest in the country with a combined enrolment in excess of 116,000 as at 12 years ago. Current enrolment in these universities would have risen above 130,000.

The annual spend of N3,000,000 (£12,000) by each Nigerian student in the UK and the proposed allocation of about N500,000 (£2000) per head in the 2013 budget on each of the students from our five elite universities, going by the assumed enrolment figure above, will only best describe us as connoisseurs of irony – we will rather hand over more to foreign universities than we are prepared to cede to our own institutions. The best these universities can churn out on this budget would be generations of casually informed graduates. It would be pedantic to delve into the results these disparate figures will produce or the damage this poses to the future of Nigeria, and the prospect of employment of the country’s army of youth whose current unemployment rate is put at over 40 percent. Even if achievable, the government’s much bandied Vision 2020-20 would be no more than a mirage or a crinkle of papers in the same manner the year 2000 passed without the health for all or education for all promised in the decades preceding that particular year.

It is interesting to note that in the same 2013 budget proposals, the allocation to the National Assembly is N150 billion (£600,000,000), about a quarter of The Gambia’s GDP. As if lawmaking is an end itself and in continuation of the buffet politics Nigeria has bequeathed on itself, the country will spend that princely sum on its lawmakers for essentially what is a part-time vocation in most countries. A figure that dwarfs, by a ratio of 2.34:1, the proposed spend on the combined students of the five elite universities above. Lawmaking must be more important than those expected to implement these laws and build the country’s future.

Whatever laws these lawmakers enact will have little impact on the future of the country, as the key ingredient for the future is not being properly developed – the army of youths, the majority of the country’s demography that are expected to implement, make sense of or obey these laws will part with these laws like tug and tow in a marine misadventure. Nigeria’s current population pyramid indicates that the majority of its population is below the age of 35 years, a relatively young population even if not too far away from the country’s life expectancy of 52 years. Sadly, this majority is not likely going to be an efficient one in the future unless the country prioritises their education urgently. Every country gets what it rewards; our generous reward of lawmakers, even if good for politics, is bad for policy.  The future belongs to societies with the best solutions to the challenges of an ever-dynamic world we now live in.

culled from: BusinessDay