Funding for the University’s education system should naturally be on two fronts; the first and more important will or should be on the supply side, which is the infrastructure within these campuses as well as the quality of academic staff . The other being the demand side, the funding of every Nigerian who wants a university education. No doubting, both the supply and demand sides will have resonant effects on the quality of our education, we cannot choose one at the detriment of the other as both should naturally go hand in hand.
For example, the provision of first class infrastructure in our universities, laboratories, with even space research centers coupled with brilliant and well paid academics may not have any impact on the nation if a majority of its citizens cannot afford such education, such campuses may well serve as centers of tourist attraction and not for academic excellence. Funding of the system basically should be the preserve of the Nigerian government at Federal and State levels as I said last week, using more of its gross domestic product for such, say 22 percent at most. And in anger I cannot sincerely understand why those who benefitted from such a policy seek to remove from those coming after them the same ladder, by which they attained the Golden Fleece. It is more shocking when one sees the rapacious greed shamelessly exhibited by these same people who cry like the prophets of Baal that there is no money to truly fund university education. Yet these same governments want to command loyalty from its citizens.
When these governments argue that such social expenditures should be in accordance with real possibilities, I am forced to point them to countries like Cuba, though poor financed education from the cradle to post graduate levels. Lest we forget Cuba was for a greater part of the last century till recent times under sanctions from the US and other Latin American countries, cutting it off from the needful investments it did need, yet undeterred it has transformed itself from a situation where it struggled with illiteracy to one where it has the most educated citizenry.
Real possibilities indeed! Where government feels it cannot, though we know it can, then it should develop student tertiary education loans where students from poor households and communities but with great prospects can access these loans payable when these students graduate and find jobs for themselves or are absorbed into the civil service to work for a particular tenure at a particular salary scale. Here government would propose that students, who would agree to pay to the government a share of their earnings in return for their degree course, would receive funding for the time being. In effect, government would be investing in our brightest and will still be made to benefit from these same students when they graduate. The scheme will be favorable to majorly the have not’s as those who can will majorly not want to access such loans. With the emergence of biometrics and ICT, the tendency for such persons to default on such loans will be quite slim.
I can just hear the nay sayers asking where the money will come from as loans to these students. The answer is there, block the leakages and from the reforms set to be initiated by President Buhari the country is sure of saving millions of Dollars annually, government can transfer some of the government’s savings from reforms to this loan scheme. Believe you me, much more can–and should–be done, as there is no more straight and urgent way to enhance University education for the poor than through such student aid/loan programs. Also there is the fear that such loans will fuel tuition increases in university education generally, this will likely not be possible as studies conducted in countries which run similar policies as this have shown that there is no connection between student loans and changes in tuition. The provision of student loans will make our tertiary education system more inclusive, does not neglect or leave our brightest students behind and would help match industry requirements. If the
Nigerian nation is to become a knowledge economy by 2020, (I now hear of 2050) talk-less of being a leading one, then the immediate and responsible thing for it to do now is to ensure a greater funding of the University system and a move towards this direction. To do otherwise is to surrender its dreams and visions of being a top player in the top 20 economies by the year 2020 or is it 2050?
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