Development & Aid, Education, Headlines

EDUCATION-NIGERIA: Universities Producing Poor Quality Graduates

Remi Oyo

ABUJA, Apr 10 2001 (IPS) - A study by the World Bank and the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research has returned a low verdict on the quality of training received by the University graduates in Nigeria.

Not only are ‘university graduates poorly trained and unproductive on the job, but are also having “shortcomings particularly in oral and written communication and in applied technical skills”, says the report.

The report states that more than 50,000 graduates are produced annually from Nigeria’s 43 state and private universities, costing an estimated 4,500 US dollars to produce each student.

While graduates complain of high levels of unemployment, “employers complain that graduates are poorly prepared for work”, says the report.

The employers “believe that academic standards have fallen considerably over the past decade and that a university degree is no longer a guarantee of communication skills or technical competence”.

The report says that because education has been allocated a ‘declining share of GNP (gross domestic product) over the past two decades’, falling from 6.4 per cent in 1980 to 0.7 per cent in 1997, there has been ‘persistent unrest on campuses and the rise in anti-social behaviour’.

The University of Lagos has, for instance, been closed down after students disrupted lectures following clashes with police officers outside their campus. One student was killed in the fray with the police officers in the Lagos suburb of Bariga.

The report titled ‘Labour Market Prospects of University Graduates in Nigeria’ states that the growth rate of Nigerian Universities at 15 per cent per year was quite high by world standards.

Total enrolment of undergraduates in federal universities that now number 24 rose from more than 74,000 in 1980 to over 275,500 in 1998. While between 1991 and 1997, the population of male students grew by 42 per cent, female students rose by 66 per cent.

The study shows that Nigeria has more university-trained labour than its economy can absorb, leading to an unemployment rate of 22 per cent in “many metropolitan areas”.

“Even among the university graduates that are able to find work, employers express major reservations about the quality of their education”, the study adds.

“Many employers state that the quality of the graduates is simply a reflection of the quality of academic staff, learning resources and funding limitations”, the report says.

Resource allocation and the crises in the universities are at the bottom of the current quarrel between the Nigerian Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

ASUU called its members to stop work last week to force the implementation of an agreement reached with the government last year. The government through its new Minister of Education Babalola Borishade had asked for understanding and more time to conclude negotiations with other unions in the universities.

Not only has ASUU asked for 50 per cent of the National budget to be devoted to education, but it also has demanded a fraction of the sale of the country’s crude oil.

The agreement, which has yet to be ratified, pledged a 26 per cent allocation of the national budget to education and a substantial increase in the salaries of teachers.

Students and parents have expressed concern over the current strike by the University teaching staff.

“Nigerian students have lost so much time to strikes of this nature and to the sporadic closure of tertiary institutions”, says the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), in a statement made available to IPS.

It says, “From past experiences, the products of this type of strike abound in several unwarranted pregnancies in young female students, coupled with prostitution and unimaginable vices among their male counterparts”.

In a statement, the National Parents and Teachers Association of Nigeria says “it should not be a curse that no academic session shall pass without incessant disruptions of academic programmes”.

The statement, signed by Babs Animashaun, urged the government and ASUU to resume dialogue “in the true interest of better and qualitative education in our universities”.

 
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