Universities must prepare needs-based budgets —Bamiro

Olufemi Bamiro, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is the former vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan and pro-chancellor of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State. In this interview, he spoke to MODUPE GEORGE on issues bordering on university education, entrepreneurship education, graduate employability, among others. Excerpt:

ONE of your books is entitled ‘Pains and Gains of Growth: Case Studies in Entrepreneurships’. What inspired you to write it?

That book was jointly published by me and Professor Albert Alos, a foundation director of the Lagos Business School. He happened to be a professor of Electrical Engineering. We were both professors at the University of Ibadan and we were very close. When we were both there, he discovered that most Nigerian top level managers, when they needed to go for trainings, they ended up going to Harvard University and London School of Economy. So, he felt that these trainings could be done in Nigeria, but there is no outfit that catered for this. Our universities have been missing out on things like that.

He went to Lagos to establish what is known today as the Lagos Business School, which is known all over the world. I was in Lagos Business School to do my sabbatical and there they have a programme called Advanced Management Programme, which is for managers. You come in there and they teach you things that are beyond theories. They teach practical because, when you are the manager, in all cases you are taking decisions.

In the Lagos Business School, I wasn’t only helping here and there; I also enrolled as a student for the AMP. One thing that is strong in most businesses school all over the world is the Case Methodology. It is about sitting with somebody who has been in a particular business, like we did for Folu Ayeni, the owner of Tantalizers, to ask him or her, how did you start this business? What are the challenges? As you are growing, what sort of decision did you make and so on? In LSB, I discovered that most of the cases they were using are from abroad and often times they don’t capture the reality in Nigeria. Then, I told my friend, ‘let’s start writing our own cases in Nigeria.’

Later, we wrote a case on Tantalizers. We brought Folu Ayeni into the class and he sat there quietly. People would have read about issues in the business and the class would be asked: ‘What would you advise the owner to do? There must be a critical decision, and in the case of Tantalizers, it was, should he backward-integrate and start running a poultry business, since he cannot control the price of chicken in the market? He would be there listening and taking notes. After everything, then you would hear: ‘Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much; Folu Ayeni is here.’ Everybody was surprised and excited at the same time to see him. We did that, and it was highly successful and why was it a success? It was because it reflected the realities of doing business in Nigeria. So when this now became popular, I started doing more cases. I did Avian Specialities in Ibadan, because Ibadan is a centre of poultry in the country. I also did a case study on System Specs, a software outfit by Don Obaru, the man who introduced Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Remita, which is now being used as payment platform for all government workers.

Of course, my friend, Professor Alos, also did some and at that point we said let’s put them in a book so people can share in the knowledge of what it takes to grow in business and the challenges. The book is not only meant for people to gain knowledge, but most importantly we are reflecting the Nigerian situation.

You are very passionate about case methodology. How is this relevant to academics?

There is hardly any university in Nigeria where you don’t see entrepreneurship, but they are not being well handled. Entrepreneurship is not a chalkboard thing. Nothing teaches entrepreneurship more than case methodology. A student might have an idea, but may not know how to turn it into a product in business or something. Yes, you can teach the theory, but what about bringing somebody who had been in that position to the classroom to tell you what had been done through case methodology? When you are looking for bedrock of conservatism, it is in academia. We don’t like change. I believe that at the level of postgraduate and level of training managers, the case methodology is powerful.

When I finally went to Lagos Business School and I was involved actively, I could remember bringing Case Methodology to UI was a tug of war. People have a feeling in the academia that anything business, quoting them, “it will dilute the academic rigour.” They feel anything business is not rigorous and that is a mistake we have been making. In our universities, we are preparing most of our graduates for white-collar job and the jobs are not there. Some don’t even know what to do when they don’t get the white collar jobs; whereas, some of them have ideas that can be turned into businesses, but they don’t know how.

For, instance the Tai Solarin University is running a dual system. When you register as a student in Tai Solarin University, where I’m a pro chancellor, it doesn’t matter what degree programme you have registered for, they have other 10 areas for skills development. These vocational skills development can either be in hairdressing, beauty therapy, tailoring, woodwork, carpentry, among others. When you come into the system, they will give you time to look through, decide and then pick which one you have flair for. You will be trained on them for four years. In the first two years, you will be doing more of the theory, but in the last two years, you are going fully into the real practical training on the vocation you have chosen; and by the time you are finishing from there, you will be awarded a certificate. You need to see the works of the students who are in carpentry. In fact, they got a contract of N300 million from the state government. They were the ones who furnished Kola Daisi University. And if you see the shoes they are making there at the student level, fantastic quality shoes, not to talk of other things like honey.

Meanwhile, it is not as if they are doing any of these at the expense of their academics; the two systems have been perfectly interwoven. Being a University of Education, you can imagine a teacher made from such environment who is already good in a vocation being in a secondary school to teach. Ghana is more serious in implementing education policies than Nigeria, and you can see the result.

 So, what is the solution to these lapses?

As the chairman of a committee set up by the NUC, Skills Development Advisory Committee, part of the things we are going to come up with is on curriculum change. We are now proposing for the Nigerian university system what we call an Outcome-based Curriculum. Teaching is now going beyond just going to the class to teach; but you are going to teach with an idea at the back of your mind what the students must have learnt at the end of the course. That is the beauty of an outcome-based curriculum. The attitude we have right now cannot produce what we are talking about. Another thing that has to change is the philosophy of examination. What are we testing? Are you testing how much a student can carry in his head and pour, or are you testing the extent to which he has acquired what he has learnt as a thinking tool? Most students are not thinking through things; they are reading to remember what they have learnt, rather than using it to think critically. Critical thinking is another thing we need to imbibe in the products of our university.

How will all of these guarantee graduate employability in the long run?

From the experience I garnered from Scotland when I visited the University of Glasgow, Scotland and St Margaret University, Musselburgh, East Lothian near Edinburgh in Scotland, it has been shown that within six months, not less than 80 per cent of their graduates either get jobs or are into something. When asked how they were doing it, it was discovered that there is a lot of cooperation between the university and the industry, unlike here where our libraries are full of books on the shelves. Over there, they only have tables for students to read. In these two universities they have converted the library to what they call ‘Students’ Learning Centre. And what does that mean? You will find a round table with up to like 10 chairs around them and at the centre of the table is something like a computer that has access to the internet, where the student can come to discuss, argue, analyse and learn. The ones I witnessed, in the midst of them were two people from industries, who brought a problem from their factories to the university to ask students to help them think through and the students were there debating and learning. By so doing they get to know about what is going on out there and are indirectly being taught team work. This is another great attribute of an employable graduate. Won’t a company you have always helped solve problems employ you to come and work for them when you graduate from such institution?

Also, government should endeavour to create an environment that will encourage business start-up. The business environment is harsh. There are ideas all over the places that people are ready to turn into businesses, even from the university. What we are saying is from our own end, let us do our bit; we hope that government will take care of the industrial end.

As a seasoned and well travelled educationist, what do you think we are doing wrong?

First and foremost, funding has to improve, because our education is not being well-funded. In Ghana, 30 per cent of the budget is spent on education, unlike in Nigeria where we are spending six per cent. UNESCO has prescribed 26 per cent for developing countries, but I always tell people that it’s very important that we give a sizeable percentage of our budget to education. Most countries are putting a lot of resources into training of teachers and students; but in Nigeria, we are not funding education to make the kind of products we are looking for. From 2005 to the present, the Federal Government, and probably in some instance states too, have been giving public universities envelope funding. They will just make sure that what they give you is enough to pay salary. What they give you is overhead, which cannot even cover your overhead. At no point have they asked you how much do you need to run your system? Rather, the attitude is, take it if you like or leave it. Also on the part of universities too, we have stopped budgeting. I have always said it that universities have to sit down and come up with needs-based budgets. What are the needs? Then government can now say, okay, to meet the needs of this university, we’ll give so and so; because how much will you make from selling bread and water? Proper funding of education in Nigeria is urgent.