It is an incontrovertible fact that Nigeria is currently experiencing a critical manpower development challenge. The numbers of qualified candidates seeking admission into higher education is far greater than the numbers that can be effectively and efficiently accommodated.
It was Olu Falae, who posited in 2005 that the increasing demand for university education is intended to create more job opportunities for them in the increasingly competitive global employment and information technology-driven environment. He noted in his treatise that one of the major problems facing university education in the country is that increasing demands are not matched with expansions in infrastructures to make learning conducive.
Also, Okunola Rashidi Akanji and Ikuomola Adediran Daniel of the Department of Sociology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria stated in their research published in 2009 that “empirically, the average figure of excess demand for University education which was 42% (1977) doubled itself to 84% by 1990 in Nigeria. They demonstrated in their work the difference between the numbers of those who put in for admission and those who actually get admitted to be less than the actual rate which is astronomically high. The question posed by both academics in their research is that, how are the differences in accessing higher education catered for? Or what opportunities exist for this large population of those who could not be accommodated yearly? Both the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) and Audu (2003) also established that the number of prospective students seeking admission into tertiary institution in Nigeria is projected to be about 1.2 million yearly. However, only about 20% of this number actually secures admission to such institutions private or public.
There aren’t empirical data on the number of students who are frustrated to study outside the country as a result of these inadequacies and others whose reasons are far from the above. It is, however, in recognition of this enormous challenge and given the obvious fact that education is the biggest industry of its citizens that early in the second term of the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s administration in Edo State, he put in motion a machinery for the establishment of two new additional universities for Edo people. The Bills for their establishment went through the due process of law-making and were promptly passed and signed into law. The same progressive House of Assembly had had to make some amendments into the establishment of the Edo University, Iyamo Law.
Much work had gone underway to push through this lofty aspiration such as the gazzetting of the enabling law, academic brief and physical master plan. Only last week, the National Universities Commission (NUC) approved the establishment of the Edo University, Iyamo, as the 41st State University and 142nd University in Nigeria. This calls for clinking of glasses.
The letter from the Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, to the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, dated 23rd March, 2016, which conveyed the message stated, “We hereby pledge our support to the University and urge His Excellency and Edo State Government, to take full advantage of the professional and technical advice that we are statutorily required to give to State Governments, on the establishment and operation of their universities.
“By a copy of this letter, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Tertiary Education Trust Fund and the National Youth Service Corps, have been informed of the establishment of the new University.”
Also last week, following the presentation of its report by the Professor Denis Agbonlahor-led Committee, it was obvious that all is now set for the take-off of the Tayo Akpata University of Education, Ekiadolor, being established by the Comrade Adams Oshimhole-led government. The Governor, while receiving the report of the committee in his office emphasized the need to upgrade the quality of teachers in order to improve the quality of learning in schools.
Governor Oshiomhole said the upgrading of Ekiadolor to a university is to ensure that NCE teachers are not in the state’s secondary schools. He was also of the view that the quality of teachers is important, emphasising that “to teach in our secondary schools: junior and senior secondary schools, we must have Bachelor of Education (B.ED) so that the students will be in very good hands.”
It is quite obvious that the state governor is avidly committed to the quality of our secondary school products as he equally noted that the mass failure in exam is not by accident. In his words: “If pupils have not learnt, it might as well be because the teachers have not taught. So, that is the whole idea. We must scale down on our NCE requirements.”
Oshiomhole did a good trace of the level of performance in WAEC, NECO, JAMB with the poor performance of students and is bent on correcting that by ensuring that Teachers who teach students in Edo State secondary schools are armed with their B.ED degrees and not the NCE stuffs. The NCE holders would now go to the Primary schools to teach where also the Teachers Grade 11 Certificates has been abolished. One cannot but agree with our comrade governor that our children are now constrained to go through tough times in securing admissions with universities now setting up another exam because in his words: “when you look at the failure rate, somebody is probably trying to play with standard, to pass people who ordinarily didn’t pass, so universities now do their own in-house examination to fill the limited vacant positions in our universities.”
Earlier in its preliminary report, the Agbonlahor committee made among its recommendation that, the University should commence as soon as practicable within the Adams Oshiomhole – led administration tenure.
Clearly, the establishment of these two universities during the second term of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is indicative of the fact that he has risen to resolving the agonies of parents whose wards finish secondary school with their requisite qualifications to go into universities but do not have a place year in, year out. They now have wider opportunities to have their children secure a place in the competitive world. Oshiomhole’s feat means broadening the chances of Edo children gaining admissions into the universities.
The State-owned university at Ekpoma which has also been repositioned with more infrastructural development by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s administration, the university of Benin and the four private universities in the state would undoubtedly complement the efforts of the state government to provide every Edo sons and daughters who finish from secondary school a good opportunity to secure a place in the university. This is a highly commendable feat for which, the Edo State Comrade Governor would eternally be remembered.
Beyond this is the dirty politics of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which criticised the comrade governor for citing the new Edo state university in Iyamo. It is my considered view that we must not look at these development with partisan lenses, because one of them is also located in Ekiadolor and besides, all the three Senatorial districts now have state-owned universities. What we need to do now is to continue to savour the gains derivable from the establishment of the two new universities in the state which is an add-on to the Comrade Governor finishing well.
Mr. Dan Owegie is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Edo State.
