Varsities abrupt closure threatens academic future, skills of students

The recent closure of the Federal universities of Lagos and Port Harcourt have again drawn attention to the primary function of a citadel of higher learning and they should be administered in Nigeria.

Abruptly closed for different reasons, the effects seem to be similar which amounts to interruption of academic programmes, increased financial and emotional burden on parents, unproductive time available to students whilst at home and the growing deficit in employability skills amongst university graduates.

Stakeholders in the education sector and industry watchers are worried that this development no doubt comes with consequences.

This comes at a time when captains of industry are lamenting the poor quality of graduates from the universities. Obadiah Mailafia, an economist, told BusinessDay “I have spoken to several people in industry and I hear the same despair about the quality of our graduates. Those of them who can speak or write English without a grammatical mistake are rare indeed. What is even more baffling is the professoriate.”

Mailafia affirmed, “I have been alarmed and embarrassed to come across professors who cannot speak or write proper English. If the quality of the teachers is so poor, what would you expect the end-products to be? The problems are so fundamental that we have to revisit the foundation itself: the quality of lecturers, the rigour of teaching from primary school up to the tertiary level, and the emphasis on numeracy, literacy and clear writing and speaking without the most basic mistakes in the English language.”

Muda Yusuf, director general Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry while reacting to this situation observed that a number of industries have human capital deficiencies because the universities are unable to supply the needed skills.

According to him, “In manufacturing, ICT application to manufacturing processes is increasing. There are new machines, technologies and processes, graduates with whom manufacturers interface are deficient in the requisite skills. In the telecoms sector, a relatively new sector in terms of growth, there are questions of capacity in different aspects of the operation and graduate inadequacies.”

Yusuf observed that Telecommunication companies spend a lot in retraining. He equally pointed out that the same is applicable to oil and gas where the Nigeria can’t meet the requirements for local content because the skills needed are not available.

“In construction, we face similar problems; most artisans are brought in from neighbouring countries because those we have locally would rather prefer to ride ‘okada’ than develop the necessary skills. In the automobile sector, technology is growing and we do not have the manpower to catch-up.” He added.

A student of the University of Lagos, who wants to remain anonymous said “I am a final year student of English Language, we were only two weeks away from our final examinations and I have plans already for my second degree, shutting the school down indefinitely is so frustrating and UNILAG management does not seem to want to resolve this quagmire.”

“Many people assume the problems that led to the shutdown of the school were just lack of fuel, electricity and water. However, these are only symptoms of a bigger problem. The University of Lagos has many sources of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and should depend neither on the Lagos State Government nor the Federal Government to generate electricity to power the school. It is disheartening. Our parents are equally frustrated because this has distorted their budgets” she said.

Hilary Inang, professor of Environmental Engineering and Science, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA, disclosed that the way forward is for the National Universities Commission (NUC) to be depoliticised.

Inang insists that appointment of Vice Chancellors (VCs) should be depoliticised stressing that this will ensure vice chancellors to any citadel of learning in the country are appointed based on academic, managerial excellence and not on geo-political zones or ethnic consideration.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU