The National Universities Commission (NUC) announced recently that it has asked all degree-awarding institutions to suspend the running of part-time programmes. According to the NUC Executive Secretary Professor Julius Okojie, the decision was informed by the need to streamline such programmes. He noted that over the years, universities had churned out bad products. He solicited the co-operation of universities “to evolve a more focused and credible system”.
According to him, no university should have more than 20 per cent of its student population on part-time, with excess capacity to teach, adding that “all part-time programmes must be located on-campus. We do not want satellite campuses anymore”. One report said over 10 million students would be affected by the new policy, which most universities have already kicked against.
Notwithstanding reasons that Professor Okojie has adduced for the suspension, the announcement once more underlined the policy summersaults that have characterised the education sector in recent years.
Universities introduced such part-time programmes principally to augment their finances due to persistent shortfalls in government funding. At the same time, they provided members of the community who can afford the cost with alternative platform to obtain higher education with appropriate and verifiable certification. Over the years, budgetary allocations to Nigerian universities as well as the educational sector have been declining. In the 2012 budget, for instance, education has less than 10 percent of the total budget, a far cry from the minimum prescribed by the United Nations.
The challenges that the NUC ascribed to the running of part-time programmes in Nigerian universities cannot be isolated from the dilemma facing the educational sector in general. But its effects are far more problematic, at least in the immediate future, namely, the future of those who hope for higher education via this time-tested route. Recent events at the University of Abuja which culminated in the suspension of some courses by the Federal Ministry of Education are a clear case to be worried about.
These days, government policies seem in most cases to be thought out without considering the wider effects they might have.
If these programmes had been run for years, and are now found to be deficient, what steps did the NUC take to remediate the situation, instead of their wholesale suspension? What is the fate of those already enrolled into the programmes? It is clear that the idea of part-time programmes was to allow for Nigerians who are employed and may not have the opportunity – or the time – to attend regular classes to improve themselves. Today, students involved in these schemes are young secondary school leavers who feel left out by the bottleneck that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations has become.
The negative effects of the suspension should persuade the NUC to have a rethink and moderate the policy in order to take account of all those involved. In fact, some universities have made it clear that they intend to continue the programmes until the current students enrol in them graduate. A better option would be for the NUC to begin proper monitoring of the programmes and strict implementation of rules on the number of students to be enrolled, and insist that universities improve on their facilities.
Also, the NUC should place a moratorium on further enrolments, while ensuring that students already involved in the system are allowed to complete their courses. Whatever reviews the NUC proposes to make, that should not take too long, and should not include any suggestion of jettisoning the part-time programmes entirely.
Government should also heed the clamour by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other unions in the education sector for proper funding and improved facilities. It is such funding that would guarantee the establishment of more state-owned universities with the required quality of staff and facilities, as against the growth of substandard private universities in the country. There are millions of Nigerians who yearn for quality and affordable education which they have over the years been denied because of government’s dwindling investment in the sector. Until this serious problem is addressed, any attempt at quick-fixes and policy reversals will not augur well for the system.
source (Daily Trust)
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