A Professor of Social History at Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Ezekiel Adeoti, has urged the vice-chancellors of public universities in the country to be more prudent in their spending of scarce school resources.
He also implored the universities to explore alternative sources of funding outside of government to enable them to effectively carry out their tripartite mandates of teaching, research, and community services.
Adeoti gave this advice while delivering the 95th inaugural lecture series of LASU on Tuesday. He spoke on “Interrogating multidimensional crises in the management and funding of university education in Nigeria: A historian’s perspective.”
The don went down memory lane, declaring that even though crises in public universities in Nigeria are multidimensional, inadequate funding has been the major problem causing most of the crises, especially those between the workers’ unions and the government, with the situation worsening each day.
He referenced the protracted crisis between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government over issues such as the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), decayed infrastructure, poor remuneration and welfare, dearth of lecturers, “Japa” Syndrome, and the proliferation of state-owned universities, among others.
He observed that most of these issues were the ones that often caused ASUU and other staff unions to embark on frequent and prolonged industrial actions, with dire consequences on the system.
He said it was disheartening, for example, that ASUU industrial actions could last up to a total of 1,637 days, which is four years and five months, in 26 years from 1999 to date, with Muhammadu Buhari’s administration witnessing the highest number, which was 637 days, followed by the Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, which was 548 days.
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The don also raised the observation that only a few historians, notwithstanding their large number and high academic attainment in the country, had ever been appointed as vice-chancellors of public universities in Nigeria, and most of those appointments were mostly in the 60s, with Prof Akinwunmi Olayemi, who was appointed as VC of Federal University, Lokoja, in 2021, being the most recent.
He said most of the criteria being used for appointing VCs in Nigeria usually favored professors in medicine, science, and law more than those in arts and humanities. He said the situation is critical at LASU, such that no historian has ever been appointed as VC of the institution since its establishment 40 years ago.
He pointed out that most of these issues cause crises that, in turn, thwart genuine growth and development of university education such that most Nigerian universities can’t compete favorably in the global space.
Nevertheless, Adeoti listed some of the alternative areas universities could explore to raise funds and manage the system better, including tuition, running remedial programs, endowment funds, alumni associations, award of honorary degrees, collaboration with private and government agencies, among others.
According to him, only adequate financing of public university education through various sources, as already mentioned, can serve as an antidote to crises in the universities and ensure nation-building sustainability.
He emphasized that it is obvious that the government alone cannot successfully fund education at any level and therefore universities need to explore those alternative revenue sources.
He also advocated that all hands must be on deck to wage war against corrupt practices such as funds mismanagement and misappropriation among university administrators and others who are entrusted with the school funds.
In her brief remark, the Vice-Chancellor of LASU, Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Prof Adenike Boyo, commended the inaugural lecturer and described him as an erudite scholar and historian.