What Nigerian universities need to be relevant in future — Ochefu, Secretary Gen, Committee of VCs

A professor of economic history and development studies, Yakubu Ochefu has identified steps that Nigeria needs to take to genuinely prepare both its public and private-owned universities for future relevance.

He said though some progress had been made over the years in the nation’s university education, unfolding events in the global space has made it compelling for Nigeria to rejig and reform its university system to enable it to produce a well-rounded and fit-for-purpose workforce.

Ochefu, who is the Secretary General of the Committee of vice chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), made this observation as a guest lecturer at the 81st Interdisciplinary Research Discourse of the Postgraduate College of University of Ibadan, recently.

He spoke on a theme: “Rethinking the Philosophy of University Education in Nigeria in the Era of Education 4.0.”

The vice chancellors of the University of Ibadan, Professor Kayode Adebowale and Lead City University, Ibadan, Professor Kabiru Adeyemo as well as Provost of Postgraduate College, UI, Professor Ayodeji Ogunjuyigbe, were among other intellectuals present at the event.

According to Ochefu in his paper made available to Nigerian Tribune, there are myriads of challenges consistently confronting university education in Nigeria, ranging from shrinking funding, poor quality of teaching and non-teaching staff, poor remuneration, infrastructural deficit and decay, low morale of workers, poor research funding, “Japa” syndrome, to curriculum inadequacies among others.

He, however, said that something could still be done to ride over them and convert them to opportunities to attain greatness.

He listed 10 most desirable soft skills as micro- credential expected of university products to possess to become relevant in the world of work now and in future globally

These, according to him, include sense-making (which is ability to determine the deeper meaning of expression), social intelligence (ability to connect to others for right reasons), novel and adaptive thinking (ability to think and solve problems), cross-cultural (ability to adapt with others), computational thinking(ability to translate and understand vast amounts of data into abstract concepts), new-media literacy(ability to leverage on new media for persuasive communication).

The others are transdisciplinarity (ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines), design mindset (ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes), cognitive load management(ability to filter information), and virtual collaboration(ability to work as a team).

While noting that the fourth Industrial Revolution has radically changed the nature and character of the “world of work,” Ochefu observed that universities and academics are no longer the sole custodians of knowledge as learning and teaching now have no boundary again.

He noted: “Aside that education can now be delivered through multiple channels, new knowledge in terms of academic disciplines, specialisations, content creation, and generation are also no longer solely the products of academic institutions.

“Corporate universities, publishing houses, research centres, think tanks and non-governmental agencies are now hubs for generating new knowledge systems.

The don, however, put the total number of universities currently in Nigeria at 265, out of which he said 53 are federal and 63 state-owned and the rest private-owned.

He noted there are lots of challenges as already identified that confronted them and most especially the government owned.

He said upon this background, stakeholders at the government levels, private participants, parents and students, and the host communities, among others would need to wake up and do something in their respective capacity to substantially address the listed challenges.

He said that “Nigerian universities will need to be competitive just like those in the developed countries in their tripartite functions of teaching, research and community services.

“In re-thinking the 21st Century university education for Nigeria therefore would require all stakeholders and particularly the government to look into the mirror for truth and honest self-assessment of the situation.”

Ochefu therefore specifically called on academic leaders to continually encourage and push the political leaders, who are custodians of public funds to improve investments in the subsector, and also develop innovative curricula that are problem-solving-driven and relevant to the current and future needs of the labour market and the promotion of research and scholarship.

Similarly, Ochefu suggested that academic leaders should also transition from mere knowledge providers to facilitators of learning and that the provision of scholarships and other forms of financial assistance to staff and students should likewise take a front burner such that no student is denied university education on account of no money.

Ochefu therefore advocated multiple financial sources and cost-effective and transparent allocation of resources for universities, saying doing these would greatly help them to perform optimally.

According to him, an understanding of new ways of managing and meeting stakeholders’ expectations, creative and innovative thinking and risk management must stack high in university operational repertoire.

“We must also go beyond the triple helix model of the university-industry-government relationship to include the-public-(quadruple) and the environment (quintuple) interactions within a knowledge economy. “

The quadruple helix model, according to him, involves using the media to carry along the public on new government policies and programmes to move the education system and economy generally forward.

Ochefu also harped on the importance of universities having vice-chancellors with clear visions, knowledge and skills to make things happen.

On the future of Nigerian universities, the guest lecturer declared that public-private and publicly traded universities and for profit making would emerge as new ownership models.

He also projected that the class of “edupreneurs” would grow and overtake the existing institutions and significantly increase the choice of schools available  across levels .

He noted that the market value for tertiary education globally is $763 billion while the value is projected to grow annually by 14.49 %.

Referencing the World Bank report that put the global student population four years ago as 220 million and with a projection to hit 380 million by 2030, Ochefu said Nigeria needs to be more concerned about where its university education would be in six years time and beyond.

He said the recently introduced New Core-Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards for Nigerian universities had set the tone for the journey, urging all the stakeholders to tighten their belts for the task.

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