The task before OAU

IT is important to move away a bit from the political discourse even though political institution, being the master science as it is always presented to be, determines whatever happens in other societal institutions.

This institution, according to Harold Lasswell, determines who gets what, when and how.

By implication, polity determines the allocation of resources required for the maintenance of other institutions even though the generation of such resources hardly comes with political efforts; hence the need for giving equal attention to other institutions as education which can guarantee a sanctimonious polity needed for fair distribution of national wealth.

It is for this reason that the current issue of periodic accreditation carried out by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on our universities will be considered for discussion.

This would not have been an issue had there not been disappointment in the nation’s universities which have had some of their programmes disaccredited.

Such failure, however, would not be without implications ranging from further limited admission space, doubtful quality of our graduates, and unnecessary elongation of study period to dwindling status of our universities which could now be said to be threatening the prefix of oba in the name of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).

It should be noted that OAU is not the only university facing this challenge in the country, but it is singled out as a reference here because NUC in conjunction with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has failed to provide the public with detailed reports of the accreditation exercise.

In the absence of such reports, therefore, the public are half-informed about the state of other universities which equally could have had some of their programmes adjudged below standard by the regulatory agency.

Be that as it may, it is reasonable to work on the inadequate information rather than assumptions. The current accreditation exercise has seen OAU lose licenses for 5 (law, dentistry, botany, fine and applied arts and nutrition and consumer sciences) of its 106 programmes.

Of course, this is still infinitesimal loss as it is less than 5 per cent of the programmes offered by the institution; and given the fact that the institution is not immune against the repercussions of the institutional neglect of the nation’s education sector which has not be allocated sufficient fund by successive governments.

In the absence of fund, little is assumed to be possibly done; hence the failure of OAU to meet the criteria for accreditation of some of its programmes.

This is a threat, which could be located within the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. It is external to OAU and others in such shoes, yet there are opportunities out there for the affected institutions to tap.

In fact, OAU and other first generation universities in such shoes should be blamed for pursuing a wrong course if they only invite their respective alumni to donations for mundane projects rather than academic tools needed for effective and efficient teaching and research.

An alumni association, if well utilized, should be able to function as a pressure group with huge merits that will eventually neutralize the external threats.

For instance, OAU  which is known to have produced the Remi Tinubus, Omatseyes, Mamoras, Falanas, Falolas, Mimikos, Onis, Adelabus, and Tegbes should be able to attract non-governmental interventions with the conviction that such alumni may cease to be accorded due respect in the face of the dwindling status of their alma mater.

After all, their stories will not be complete without the mention of the institution they attended.

ALSO READ: Click here for the list of trending news headlines you might have missed

Furthermore, the non-governmental interventionists would want to see commitment and sincerity in the manner the internal resources are being managed for them to be really convinced that additional resources are needed.

This is the juncture where strengths and weaknesses are analyzed internally. No non-governmental intervention would be forthcoming in a fractional community where selfish interests or intellectual supremacy battle rather than harmonised ideas prevail.

Of course, I subscribe to the postulation that contradictions move the world. However, most of the contradictions on our campuses today are senseless. Such contradictions cannot drive excellence needed for full accreditation.

It is in our university system where unending power tussle is found between the management and the unions, within unions and between unions.

The contradictions that are visible on our campuses today are borne out of selfish gains; thereby frustrating the materialization of good ideas that could have delivered fortunes to our education sector.

It is not uncommon for some of these lecturers to fight for intellectual supremacy over the number of journal articles or doctorates produced, thinking that those should be the criteria for respecting their opinions in a seminar room.

This, among others, is a weakness on the part of our university management as such unnecessary battle is capable of silencing the highly intelligent ones among the faculty who either do not see sense in equating one’s intellectual worth with mere journal publications or doctoral supervision for these are often mere personal achievements without institutional value.

We need ideas from the university system that can really bridge the gap between the gown and the town rather than such publications continuously churned out for foreign grants to the delight of the Western predators.

Again, excellence does not thrive in a sexually harassing environment; hence the need for fishing out the faculty indulging in such a disgraceful act to pave way for genuinely refined minds that can key easily into the mission and vision of the university system.

Besides, the culture of sabbatical abuse which takes the faculty away from their primary assignment should be quickly addressed. In the name of sabbatical, some faculty could now be seen to have more time to run after political appointments.

Under the sabbatical cover, multiple job-holding has been entrenched in the system even to the detriment of their primary assignments which earn them monthly salaries from the government. It should not be surprising that some of them might not even be on ground to receive the accreditation team.

This is also a weakness that demands a quick institutional response as overlooking this and other identified weaknesses with the impression that professors and others in our universities cannot be corrected for they know better would give a negative result when the strengths are compared with the weaknesses.

Then, it will be impossible to determine the extent of the available internal strengths that can be deployed in fighting the internal threats.

Internal strengths lie in manpower more than machines; hence the need to take the stocks of available manpower as well as the ideas that are capable of being generated before looking elsewhere for solutions.

• Ibikunle lives in Ibadan.