Satellite campuses responsible for half-baked, unemployable graduates in Nigeria — Okebukola

A former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola has disapproved of the notion that Nigerian graduates are unemployable but said the establishment of a satellite campus system responsible for producing poor, half-baked, and unemployable graduates in the country.

Okebukola who stated this at a convocation lecture of the Elizade University, Ilara Mokin, Ondo State, tiled “Does Nigeria’s development cap fit the Nigerian university system?” noted that the satellite campuses were adopted by some universities to make money.

He, however, said it was apparent that the unemployable university graduates were products of satellite campuses of some universities in Nigeria but said Nigerian graduates have blazed the trail at home and abroad

He said, “The major reason some of our graduates turn out to be half-baked is, number one, the severe financial handicap inflicted, especially on the state-owned universities.

“In an attempt to meet their financial needs especially, for salaries, these universities literally sell their certificates through running poorly-delivered courses in poorly-resourced campuses affiliated to other private or public institutions far from the main campuses.

” The double-speak of the governors in the states which owned the universities is seen in the severe cut in subvention and the directive not to charge tuition beyond a ridiculously low rate.

“To make up for the shortfall in revenue, the authorities of these universities end up admitting all manner of persons into programmes in satellite or affiliate campuses, in large number.

“Add the poor delivery of the curriculum at such campuses and what we end up with, is graduates who are even less than ‘half-baked’.

“These are the persons giving the products of the Nigerian university system a bad name. The other factor of course is an interruption to the academic calendar brought about by endless cycles of strikes

“If we remove all those students not trained on the main campus of our universities, we will have not less than 90percent good quality graduates.

“The inference, we can draw from this is that graduates from the satellite campuses are the bad apples spoiling the whole bunch.”

The don maintained that the Nigerian universities still produce many good quality graduates who were being scrambled for by many countries of the world.

“If our graduates are bad, how come other countries like the UK and the US scramble to engage them for postgraduate studies and retain them after training? How come Saudi Arabia rush to recruit our doctors ? ” he queried.

In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of the Elizade University, Prof Olukayode Amund, pointed out the challenges facing the varsities in Nigeria, which include unstable and irrelevant curricula, inadequate funding, inadequate staffing, politicisation of education among others.

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