‘Poor quality of higher education in Africa threatens AU 2063 Agenda’

The 2063 vision of the African Union, which focuses on building an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, an African-driven and managed by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena, may be a mirage in the long run, if frantic efforts were not made to overhaul the poor quality of higher education in the continent.

This was the main thrust of a lecture delivered by Peter Okebukola, a professor and former executive secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) at the 10th Convocation Lecture of Covenant University, Otta in Ogun state, adding that aspirations of African Union might be dashed if much emphasis were not laid on education development.

The Chairman of Crawford University’s Governing Board, while undertaking surgical analysis of multiple challenges facing higher education on African continent, disclosed that Africa is one of the world’s most underdeveloped continents and may remain so as against aspirations of African Union, except there were significant re-orientation of higher education system.

He listed poor funding, depreciating quality of higher education teachers, research capacity, outdated academic curriculum that fails to reflect current socio-economic realities in Africa, infrastructural/facilities inadequacies, lack of regional quality assurance framework and accreditation system.

Others are poor quality of entrants into higher education from the secondary school level, slow adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering quality higher education, including distance education among other challenges, saying “removal of the foregoing challenges to quality higher education is imperative for the actualisation of vision of the African Union.”

Okebukola affirmed that about 1.1 billion people in Africa, with over 50 percent being 19 years old or younger, could only be place on good starting footings ahead of AU aspirations, if Africa strengthens her higher education system, adding that: “The AU overarching framework for the development of higher education is the Harmonization with four key policy objectives.

“These are (a) to establish harmonised higher education systems across Africa; (b) to strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions to meet many tertiary educational needs of African countries through innovative form of collaboration; (c) to ensure that the quality of higher education is systematically improved against common, agreed benchmark of excellence; and (d) to facilitate mobility of graduates and academics across the continent.”

The Professor, who tagged the academic discourse as “Higher Education and Africa’s Future: Doing What is Right”, later narrowed down to challenges to Nigeria and declared that archaic education curriculum at all levels, especially as obvious in the higher education system, prompted unemployable status of graduates and Boko Haram insurgency in the country.

He said, “Boko Haram feasts mainly on idle hands as recruits paying them much more than the national minimum wage. We should step up the delivery of entrepreneurial education at all levels of the educational system so that products of basic and higher education are better tooled for work.

“We need to rework the General Studies Curriculum to ensure inculcation of socio-politico-ethno-religious tolerance. We should re-jig Teacher Education Curriculum in a way that all Faculties of Education should prepare a new breed of teachers who are able to foster ethno-religious harmony in our schools.”

RAZAQ AYINLA