COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE ON THE DRAFT BILL FOR UNIVERSITY AUTHORITY: BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE ON THE DRAFT BILL FOR UNIVERSITY AUTHORITY: BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

CONTRIBUTION BY

Mu'azu M. Yusif

Department of Political Science

Bayero University, Kano

30/9/02

 

History has shown that Human Resource Development is the most reliable guarantee of sustainable development. Universities and other tertiary institutions are the most essential machineries of training persons to give them skills and the scientific knowledge, which is necessary for National Development. Any country which is developed or successfully on the path of development must at certain point of its search for sustainable development gives priority to education in general and university education in particular.

 

The educational condition of Nigeria at the beginning of its independent existence was very well promising and cheering. The University system in particular, its administration, management and funding was encouraging and full of prospects for future University system in the country. Although, the few universities then had enjoyed autonomy, they were not financially starved by the federal government and forced to look for financial resources from outside. No foreign corporation wanted to control their development including what research to conduct and which not to conduct, what faculties to exist and what faculties not to exist and what is the content of the teaching programme. Those universities were essentially managed from local resources with full academic freedom to determine their needs for research and teaching in the context of global needs and requirements of university education. Furthermore, these Universities enjoyed the freedom to be run according to the statutes and laws establishing them. That is what constitutes the autonomy of Universities.

 

However, this development did not go without much difficulty and several disappointments. In the 1970s and 1980s the very rapid expansion of the economy resulted in rapid expansion of Universities in response to manpower needs, and the requirements of the modern sector of the economy. The educational statistics by the federal Office of Statistics and Nigeria's Commission show very clearly the wonderful expansion of the universities enrolment. There were corresponding enlargements of enrolment in other tertiary institutions which all require enlargement of facilities. Unfortunately, this development took place in military regimes who might not have any concern for higher education.

 

From the mid – 1980s, partly because of the increasing cost of maintaining the University System and the economic crisis which afflicted Nigeria's economy the Federal government of Nigeria began to drastically reduce funding and may be for easier management turned them like civil service. Therefore, they lost their academic freedom, and conditions of service had become very poor. The universities had virtually collapsed and left with no teaching and research facilities, and with dilapidated structures.

 

This condition deserves reform of the system. In my opinion the reform needed is that which will return to the universities their "autonomy" followed by an articulated programme to be labeled "education for development". Given that the federal Military Government at that time had no any alternative reform programme of the University system, then there was a deadlock which allowed the system to continue to degenerate. I am aware of many organizations including ASUU, NLC, NANS, NNAF, and some pro-democratic movements who have alternative but could not be accepted by the government. So, no-liberal agenda comes to enjoy increasing concession even in the educational system of the country. As such the federal Government accepts World Bank alternatives to the problem. The Word Bank came with two different proposals:

1. World Bank University Project: - This was during the regime of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. The statement of intention of this programme contains many recommendations including the usual ones of staff development, acquisition of books, rationalization of programmes, etc. This one was radically resisted by ASUU and NANS, that it was abandoned by the World Bank.
   
2. The Nigeria University System innovation project (NUSIP) is the latest proposal of the World Bank. It came under the present government of Olusegun Obasanjo. It has the same objectives like the first one. This one too is rejected not only by Nigerian students and Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities but by all stakeholders including technocrats in Federal Ministries of Finance, Education, and Parent of students in Nigerian Universities. So, the World Bank has also withdrawn from the project.
   

It would appear however that the Autonomy Bill is intended to do what the two World Bank projects failed to do. The Bill which is now in the National Assembly to be enacted into a law is a draft of 18 pages. It is divided into four parts: Autonomous Establishment of Universities; Administration of Universities; Rights and Obligation of Staff and Students, and University Finance and Management. Many will regard this as a local initiative, but when carefully examined it will do the same thing as the failed World Bank projects and in the final analysis would create conducive environment in the Universities such that the World Bank can come back unopposed and do its dirty work.

 

A major aspect of the Bill which will create conducive conditions for the financial institution is in the conception of autonomy by the Federal Government. To the federal authorities, autonomy is the invalidation of all existing statutes and structures, and the promulgation of new ones that would give absolute control of the University to the Vice-Chancellor. When this succeeds, even the Senate, the congregations, the University Committees etc. will be useless to exist. Again, when the Bill succeeds, there become a legal instrument which nullified the Agreements the government had signed with the Academic Staff Union of Universities in 1992, 1999 and 2001 as documents which were designed to stabilize the University system and reform it for the better.

 

But more dangerous development for the University system will come out if we look carefully into the Autonomy Bill. The bill seems as if a desperate government determined to kill the system, faced with threat of opposition, hurriedly put its desperate feelings on paper and sent to the law making body. Except in Section 2(1) where the Bill says "A University shall be established in line with National Plans for Development and Economic Growth of the Federal Government", there is no where it is articulated in the Bill that Universities can be organized to attain objective of sustainable National Development. If the framers of the bill think that Nigeria will forever be a neo-liberal society, they are mistaken.

 

My second impression in the bill is that there is confusion, contradictions, inconsistencies and even superficiality in it. First, on funding of Education. I think the fundamental reasoning for Government's zeal to push for the bill is that it doesn't want fund University Education. It has been pushed by the World Bank and America's giant Corporations and Foundations – McArthur, Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller – that they can source money for Universities in Nigeria. Is that what they are doing in Universities in U. S. A.? The Federal Government is still the major donor for Universities there. Federal Government gives grants to Universities and there is even Federal aid to non-public schools. State Governments do the same thing. In addition, in order to make it compulsory on the various arms of government to provide grants for education there are several federal legislations to give legal backing to the funding of the system. Indeed, corporations and other private agencies contribute funding to Universities. But they are doing that in their own country. Why should we allow them to take over doing the same thing in our country? They don't do it free of charge. They attached conditions which in the final analysis will bring the destruction of our University system, not really developing it. In fact, I want to recommend that the Bill must be checked thoroughly and re-worded in such away that the Federal Government will not get any excuse against absolute funding of Universities. A subsidiary law should be enacted to enforce that. Again the law enacting "Education Tax" should be revisited and reviewed for proper enforcement. If that could be pushed in the National Assembly there will be hope that the intention of the Government to handover our Universities to foreign corporations will be arrested. Secondly, on the role of JAMB and NUC as provided in the bill there is confusion and contradiction. They are to maintain their traditional role on the one hand and their roles have to change on the other hand. In the case of JAMB, Section 29(1) provides that a basic requirement for admission into a university is by a satisfactory performance in the JAMB examinations. But Section 29(3) says "the senate of a University shall determine any further criteria and modalities for the admission of student into the University as it thinks appropriate; and conduct admissions". This I believe will carry admission exercise in Nigerian Universities into the quagmire of ethnicity, corruption, and favoritism. Recently some Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities nearly halted admissions in the Universities because they were hoping that the Bill would become a law. The quest of building a Nation in Nigeria and the Universities to be vanguards will be dashed right from admissions exercise. Thirdly, inspire of everything, the University system still retains adherence to democracy in the management of affairs of the system. It seems that the Bill is interested in wiping out this good tradition in the Universities. There are many examples of this contradiction in the Bill. One is the enormous powers given to the Vice-Chancellors. Part II section 2(c) and 2(d) say the Vice-Chancellor will "draw up plans for internal structure, nominate candidates for the post of Deputy Vice-Chancellors and appointment and removal of Head of Departments of the University" (emphasis is mine) and to "appoint and dismiss teachers and other workers of the University…". Two, while the Federal Government intends to give autonomy to Universities, yet many provision of the bill show that the Federal Government will play a dictatorial role on so many aspects of University administration. This is so, in Section 2(1) of Part I which says "A University shall be established in line with…". This Section has to be substituted with an intention and a statement which will assure independence of the Universities in the programme they run. But also a National Development Policy which education is to be designed to achieve could be debated and incorporated into the bill to substitute that Section.

 

By way of conclusion I have two positions. One is a maximalist position. This is that the bill should be returned to the President because it treats so important matter as education, superficially and with many contradictions and inconsistency. It shows that the President does not do its homework very well before it takes decision. And it is not the national Assembly to do the work for the Presidency. Second, is a minimalist position, in the sense that all the problems pointed above and others not pointed here should be addressed in the spirit of democracy and national Development for the poor citizens of Nigeria.