A former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has said that the curricula used by Nigerian universities lack innovation and dynamism and must be urgently reinvigorated and reengineered in order to make Nigerian graduates globally competitive.
He particularly called for a prioritisation of innovation in the development of Nigerian universities curricula to avail graduates opportunities to compete in the 21st century global economy.
Obasanjo, spoke on Wednesday at the second Quarterly Distinguished Lecture organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Abuja.
He spoke just as the former Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Peter Okebukola, also said that most Nigerian graduates were unemployed and unemployable.
Obasanjo who was the chairman of the occasion said curriculum was very essential to the attainment of the set objectives of any institution, adding that at any point in time, a nation must be able to answer the rationale of her educational aspirations.
He said: “No matter at what level, no matter the magnitude, no matter the goals to be achieved, there must be curriculum which is the guide to lead to the mission of the objective of the educational institution…And through the ages, the question has consistently been education for what? Education for knowledge, education for skill, education for freedom, education for self reliance, education for self sufficiency, you can go on.
“But whatever our education is for, I believe one important aspect in a dynamic society, in a dynamic situation is that the curriculum must be innovated, invigorated, reengineered and be made dynamic,” he said.
Obasanjo noted that in most cases, university administrators are often ignorant of the gulf between the work place and the academic world even as he recalled the experience a former Egyptian Minister of Youth and Employment shared in a meeting he attended outside the shores of Nigeria many years ago.
“A minister in charge of Youth and Employment in Egypt was at that meeting. He used to be a Vice Chancellor (VC) of a University and he said while he was a VC, he used to be proud of his products.
“It was when he became Minister of Youth and Employment that he realized that he was out of touch. So, he was producing graduates that were not only unemployed but that were also unemployable. He told us how he solved the problem: a one year crash programme to make them employable. So he had to engineer a review of the curriculum and I couldn’t agree more,” added President Obasanjo.
He further urged Nigerian universities to embrace innovation, without which the much craved 21st century skills would be elusive.
“We need innovation, innovation and innovation. I don’t know, but in almost every level of our life, we don’t have time to encourage innovation. We need innovation in the review of our university education curriculum, the local government and state government levels. Research and innovation may go together but they are two different things,” he stressed.
Speaking on the theme: “On the March to Reinvent the Curricula of Nigerian Universities for Improved Relevance and Global Competitiveness,” guest speaker and former Executive Secretary of the NUC, Professor Peter Okebukola, said the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) of the NUC is aimed at designing standard curriculum complete with “What topics to be taught, minimum human and material resources for delivering the curriculum, how the topics should be taught and how the courses should be examined.
Okebukola said a survey he conducted alongside 140 professors in the country recently, revealed that the current BMAS is fraught with some inadequacies ranging from outdated course content, inadequate internship periods to dearth of practical courses amongst others.
According to him, many Nigerian university graduates were unemployable not just because of deficiencies in the curriculum but other factors such as intake from secondary schools, poor teacher quality and motivation; facilities available among other contribute to poor quality of graduates churned out from institutions.
He said reviewing the curriculum would help Nigerian graduates become relevant to the industry, public service, private service and as well be globally competitive.
He added that it would help students from the secondary level develop and have better quality graduates rather than the half baked graduates that were being produced.
“The curriculum review is an all stakeholders enterprise, the industries, parents and all stakeholders in university education will be part of it, so that at the end of the day all the gaps that has been seen by the various stakeholders would have been taking care of “Professor Okebukola said.
“It is a process and between now and the end of the year, there will be all manners of interaction involving all the stakeholder’s including all the industries that will make their contributions,” Okebukola added.
“If we don’t get the curriculum accurately then you are going to get the achieved curriculum that will be severely deficient, so get the curriculum organised, get the quality, well motivated teachers, and functioning facilities and get the students that we bring innovation into the universities system and make it better.”
“Because we have half baked students so they should be prepared from the secondary level and at the end of the day we are going to have better quality graduate that is relevant to the industry,” he said.