Ghana Now Nigerian Students El dorado in Africa

Since Nigeria’s tertiary education milieu became
replete with industrial actions, most parents have
been fed on a steady diet of how schooling in
Ghana is the way out of the situation. Their
strike-weary children are jumping at the
opportunity to wrap up their studies in regulation
time. As movement of the country’s tertiary
institutions become jerkier, the flow of student
traffic from Nigeria to Ghana is tipping the scale.
Sadly, most of these private universities in
Ghana, apart from being sub-standard,
overcrowded and housed in ad hoc structures, are
allegedly fleecing Nigerian parents/students just
as the “degrees” they award are suspect, forcing
many to believe that the whole process is entirely
a rip-off. Now stakeholders are calling for serious
actions to reposition education in the country.
Calls for a thorough scrutiny of these degrees
before holders are mobilised for the National
Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme are also
rife. ENO-ABASI SUNDAY and UJUNWA ATUEYI
write.
CHECKERED academic calendar, perennial strikes by the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Academic
Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) and Colleges of
Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU); low carrying
capacity of federal government-owned public
universities; alleged frustration by the Joint Admissions
and Matriculations Board (JAMB); post-JAMB tests by
most universities, the menace of religious bigots and
terrorist group-Boko Haram; inadequate facilities and
the neck-breaking school fees some top notch private
universities in the country charge just to mention a few,
may have all joined forces to decapitate tertiary
education in Nigeria.
Hordes of parents and guardians in their search for a
way out of the quagmire have landed in Ghana, where
they think there exists a better and assured academic
environment for their children and wards.
Before now, the options for the not too rich, when it
comes to acquiring tertiary education used to be
countries like Ukraine, Cyprus, Malta and Turkey among
others.
But contemporary Nigerian students are now opting for
privately owned universities in Ghana. Interestingly,
these institutions, which some academics in that country
hold suspect, remain very attractive to so many Nigerian
students for a number of reasons.
Top on the list is their flexible admission procedures and
the ridiculously low admission requirements, which serve
as nectar to some lazy Nigerian students, who loathe
stiff competition for the limited slots available in federal
government-owned universities in both countries.
Even though the facilities in most of the privately owned
tertiary institutions in Ghana are decrepit, the students
and their parents are taking consolation in the fact that
a three or four-year programme comes to an end at its
prescribed termination date.
Still smarting from a six-month long industrial action, the
university system in Nigeria, which had been grounded,
is yet to regain its breath and verve. A good number of
parents and guardians are not waiting for that to happen
hence their haste in combing the nooks and crannies of
the neighbouring country for just any structure where
their young ones can acquire the elusive tertiary
education.
In September 2012, the entire country was jolted when
the Chairman, Committee of Pro-chancellors of Nigeria,
Dr. Wale Babalakin, revealed that Nigerians were
spending about N160b annually to fund the education of
some 75, 000 students schooling in that country. This, he
said was in addition to the huge sums also expended on
the same purpose for their children or wards in the
United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Malaysia
and the United Arab Emirates.
Babalakin, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who was
speaking at the first Leading Light award presentation of
the University of Ilorin Alumni Association, had said that
Nigeria’s budget for education in 2011 was not up to
N160bn. By implication, Nigerians spent more money
getting educated in Ghanaian tertiary institutions in 2011
than the Federal Government spent on the education
sector in the same year.
On that occasion, Babalakin who recalled that in 1975,
four Nigerian universities were rated among the top 20
varsities in Africa lamented that none of the country’s
top notch universities could now be ranked amongst the
continent’s first 10.
Last year, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian
Universities, recommended necessary policy
interventions to address the challenges facing
universities and other higher institutions in the country, if
a situation where Nigerian students have become
wanderers must be put paid to.
Prof. Michael Faborode, the Secretary-General of the
committee, said that the policy was necessary due to
the challenges of weak governance structure and
process in the Nigerian higher education sector.
Faborode who was speaking at a two-day meeting on
Consultative Policy Dialogue on the Future and
Relevance of Nigeria Universities and other Tertiary
Institutions,” in a paper entitled, “Towards Higher
Education Transformation,” lamented that the absence
of policy interventions, “…has contributed to the
disruption of academic calendar owing to the constant
bickering between the academic staff union, other staff
unions, university management and governments.”
At that meeting, which was organised by Trust Africa, an
African Foundation with headquarters in Dakar, Senegal
in collaboration with the Committee of Vice Chancellors
of Nigerian Universities, one of the key resolutions was
the need to restore effective culture of consultation,
partnership and collaboration between governments and
management of higher institutions.
He regretted that while Ghana commits a whooping 31
per cent of its budget to education, Nigeria’s budgetary
provision for the sector was a paltry eight per cent
urging that there was an urgent need to restore the
integrity of higher education in terms of work ethics and
morality, transparency, productivity, democratisation
and total commitment to the ideals of the Ivory Tower.
For the Regional International Officer of University of
Essex, United Kingdom, Mr. Arinze Odiari, policy
summersaults, poor budgeting, unsteady calendar,
corrupt practices of education providers and managers,
coupled with lack of good welfare packages for Nigerian
teachers were some of the factors driving Nigerian
students to seek tertiary education abroad.
This untoward development, has also given rise to many
phoney education agencies and consultants as well as
create room for the invasion of the Nigerian market by
foreign institutions, who promise to provide overseas
education to the bewildered Nigerian students.
In a chat with The Guardian at a two-day education fair
held in Oyo and Lagos states respectively at the behest
of Brookline Consult, an education-consulting firm,
Odiari noted that: “The country’s education policy has
not been favourable, the budget for education is not
enough and the available money has not been well
spent. The strike action that lasted for six months was a
big distraction for any system that meant well for its
people.
So, “The leaders should be more responsive to the
cause of improving education and managers of
institution, lectures should put in enough selfless
services. We hear teachers are not well taken care of
and students can buy marks. All these poor practices
cannot be seen at the international arena, and until all
these distractions are handled there won’t be a change.”
Ogunmola Aderebigbe, a parent is stridently calling for
the thorough scrutiny of certificates brought back by
young Nigerians from these universities in Ghana.
Aderebigbe, who said he was shocked at the condition,
which Nigerian children were studying in some of the
privately owned tertiary institutions while on a visit there
stressed that allowing them enjoy the same privileges as
graduates without validating their certificates would
worsen matters in future.
“In view of the allegations that have trailed the
genuineness of these private universities and in view of
what I saw on a visit there, their certificates should be
scrutinised before they are mobilised for NYSC,” he
stressed.
For Vice-Chancellor of Ondo State University of Science
& Technology (OSUSTECH), Prof. Tolu Odugbemi, the
fact that Nigerians are going out in large numbers in
search of educational institutions to acquire
“qualifications” is a signal that we have to work harder
to improve not only on quantity but the quality of our
institutions in Nigeria.
While pointing out that genuine institutions exist
alongside substandard ones in all parts of the world, he
said “our youths are therefore to be offered advice on
possible choices on institutions they can attend
anywhere.”
He lamented that with the country at crossroads,
“instead of our present educational system helping to
propel us forward in development, we face a gloomy
picture of decay because of wrong ideas and teachings
that made “self” instead of the “society” as a centre of
development. The over-development of “self” in positive
ways would not have harmed the nation but the greed
attached to “self-development” has.
The seasoned scholar who said, “Education is a tool for
development if properly handled from childhood to
adulthood through various systems,” stressed that
“character building must accompany any form of
learning for products of such institutions to be relevant
to societal development. We Nigerians must re-assure
ourselves that we can rebuild our societies by refocusing
our values on positive and virtuous traits.”
Also commenting on influx of Nigerian students into
Ghana, former Executive Secretary of the National
Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola
said, “Mobility of higher education students across
national boundaries is encouraged by the Arusha
Convention to which Ghana and Nigeria are signatories.
However, such movements are only to institutions and
programmes that are approved by the national quality
assurance agencies of the two countries. If the
institutions to which Nigerian students seek admission
are duly approved by Ghanaian authorities, it is well
within the letter and spirit of the Convention, which has
been recently revised by the African Union, for such
students to enforce their rights to education.
“On the other hand, if Nigerian authorities, in this case
NUC observe that standards are compromised in such
universities to which Nigerian students seek higher
education, it is imperative for NUC to advise students to
beware of such poor-quality institutions even if those
universities have been approved by local authorities. The
caveat emptor or buyers beware situation is similar to
the travel advisory that the US issues to its citizens when
travelling to some locations in Nigeria which the US
authorities consider unsafe for their citizens.
“Beyond this legalese and on a personal note,”
Okebukola continued, “I have seen the wishy-washy
quality of education delivered in many of the branch
campuses of foreign universities in Ghana. Most of the
local universities in Ghana-public and private are top
class and among the best in Africa but the branch
campuses of foreign universities to which Nigerian
students flock are of doubtful quality. The gain is to the
Ghanaian economy and ranking of Ghanaian universities
in terms of international students. The loss to Nigeria in
terms of economy and human capital is huge.
“The discussion should now move quickly away from
who wins and who loses, but to how we can make
Nigerian universities globally attractive for Ghanaian,
American, British, Japanese, Australian students, indeed
all students from across the world as we used to have in
the early days of the Nigerian university system. To
make these happen we should, among other things,
ensure a stable academic calendar, provide teaching,
learning and research environment that meet
international standards and guarantee security. Let’s
seek first these three things and all other things will be
added onto us,” he concluded.