Social Objectives

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

As we have seen in Chapter 5, the rights to education and health are among the fundamental rights which each family regarded – and properly so – as inalienable, at the time when it voluntarily entered, or was compelled by conquest or subversion to enter into a political association with other families. It is now too late in the day to take these rights away. All the attempts in history to deny or suppress these rights have been among the chief contributing causes of the worst forms of social instability. Many of the developed countries of the world have now recognized the dangers attendant on the denial or suppression of these rights, and have, accordingly, conceded them to their respective peoples. For some years now, it has been Britain’s national education policy that no able boy or girl shall be prevented by lack of means from taking advanced courses at a university or elsewhere’. In pursuance of this policy, over 90% of university students in Great Britain are aided from public or private funds. The same policy applies to post-secondary institutions below university level. While primary education is free and compulsory and books and school equipment are also free at this level, secondary education is practically free, in Britain. If all families were equally well off, the most sensible thing to do would indeed be to leave each of them to educate and cater to the health requirements of its members, as much as it desired. But we know that this is not the case, and that only the few well-to-do families are able to pay the high fees demanded at educational institutions, especially at the secondary and post-secondary levels.

In such circumstances as this, it is indubitable that many a potentially outstanding talent would remain for ever buried, simply because he has been accidentally brought to this world by poor parents, while at the same time, a good deal of resources would be wasted on palpably mediocre elements, simply because their parents are rich enough to afford the alchemist’s costly but fruitless venture of trying to transmute lead into gold.

On purely humanitarian grounds, it is cruel; and from the economic stand-point, it is inconsiderate and thoughtless to saddle a young person, just entering into full productive life, with indebtedness. As compared with his contemporaries who are not so unfortunately circumstanced, his morale, and hence his efficiency, is bound to be seriously advisely affected, to the detriment of the country’s total volume of output. Some people have argued, with callous self-satisfaction, and in complete ignorance or disregard of the contribution of the individual to the total wealth of a society, that since it is the individual young person who benefits financially, by way of salary, from higher education, it is he who should be called upon to pay, not the Government. Micro-economically, this argument is valid; it is the young person who benefits personally and directly from the money invested in his higher education. But macro-economically, the society also benefits directly, and probably more than he does, from the higher productivity and output which investment in his higher education has made possible. It is a truism, which can bear repetition and emphasis, that the greater the efficiency of the individual, especially in the categories of high- level and intermediate-level manpower, the higher his productivity, and hence the larger the G.N.P. or what is popul~r1y called the ‘national cake’. Any scheme, therefore, which is certain to lower efficiency is not at all in the country’s interest, and should be rejected and scrapped. Above all, the proposals for’ free education and health facilities are, as we have seen in Chapters 5 and 8, in strict accord with the basic understanding by which families are united in society, and with the principles of socialism. Having, we hope, established the essentialness offree education and health facilities as a means to Nigerian economic freedom and prosperity, we now come to the issue of practicability. We will deal with this issue on the hypothesis that Nigeria remains a capitalist economy.

It must be confessed that many of those who readily admit the essentialness offree education and health facilities express serious doubt as to their practicability under a capitalist dispensation. Where, they ask, are we going to find the money to meet the costs? This is the big question, and we now proceed to answer it. . In 1965/66, the total number of students in our five universities was approximately 8,000. The total expenditure incurred by the universities in that year on these students was approximately N12m. The average cost per student was, therefore, approximately N1,500. The total fees paid by students in that year amounted to N1.1m, an average of about N138 per student. Out of this total of N1.lm., about N600,000 was paid by the Federal and Regional Governments in respect of Government scholarship holders, leaving a balance of N500,000 which was paid by parents, guardians, and private sponsors of scholarships.

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In other words, all that the universities demanded from private coffers in 1965/66 was approximately 4’110 of the total expenditure incurred by them in that year. Comparable figures for 1967/68 are substantially different: and we think that, for reasons of fairness, they should be exhibited. The estimated cost of maintaining 6,837 students in that year at Ahmadu Bello, Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, is N9.6m., an average ot N1,500 per student. The total fees expected in the same year is estimated at N1.1m., an average of N172 per student. But the amounts undertaken to be paid by the Federal and Regional Governmel~ts on scholarships totalled N650.000. IF(lving. a balance of N450.000 due and payable from private sources. This amount is 4.7% of the total expenditure incurrable in 1967/68 by the four Universities mentioned.

It is crystal clear, from these figures, that university education in Nigeria is already virtually free. And by refusing to make it actually free, we have been doing nothing more and nothing less than straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel. It is necessary to point out that, in this misguided refusal, the Federal and Regional Governments are doing themselves less than justice.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK