Quality education and funding dilemmas

In the public imagination, free education, holdover of the years of a big spender, benevolent state holds a hypnotic fascination. In the context of severely eroding quality of education and declining oil revenues however, free education has come to mean little more than free illiteracy. The Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, expressed the problem vividly at last week’s 19th convocation ceremony of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, when he wondered why parents who could afford to pay N200,000 for their children in private secondary schools in Benin, would turn round to oppose the payment of N50,000 per session in a public university. Before exploring the matter in some depth, let me digress to offer two short takes.

Sambisa forest is in the news again, this time for good. The Nigerian Army once humbled by roving, ill-clad Boko Haram soldiers has come into its own, spectacularly redeeming its image, by recapturing 200 girls and 93 women from the dreaded forest. About 160 more were rescued on Thursday. It is not clear as this script was being turned in how many of the recaptured girls are the same as the Chibok girls. However that is resolved, the release from captivity of the Chibok girls now appears to have become a distinct possibility even if it has not already happened. One cannot but conjecture how glorious it would have been had the spate of military conquests that culminated in the foray into Sambisa forest had occurred several months earlier. But as the saying goes, all of that is now history.

What is important for now is for the country to enhance its military capability to the extent that it will be impossible for insurgents to reduce it to a laughing stock. If this does not happen and quickly enough too, then we would have learnt nothing from the Chibok saga.

The second short take comes from last Saturday’s convocation lecture in Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, delivered by Bishop Matthew Kukah. In some respects, seminal, the intervention put Nigeria’s recent elections in global perspectives. Although he thumbs up the conduct of the elections, he regrets some of their unpleasant aftermath in Northern Nigeria. Revealed Kukah: “Ordinary young men literarily killed themselves in celebration of an election victory… openly, there have been stories of young Northerners telling Christians that they are lucky because had the (presidential) election gone the other way, they would all be dead. Those of us living in the North also heaved a sigh of relief to what had been the end of a long night of uncertainty and trauma.” Kukah did not stay lamenting however; but argues that President-elect Muhammadu Buhari by the choices he makes should restore public confidence in government and politics thus beginning the healing of a nation torn apart by costly strife.

To go back to the main comment, let me fill you in on the context of the ongoing recession in the country. With several months of unpaid salaries to workers in states which now receive 40 per cent of what they used to, many are suggesting that the Federal Government has tended to belittle the magnitude of the economic downturn. Oshiomhole’s remarks referred to above which some consider to be a hint that tuition fees in tertiary institutions in Edo State will soon go up should be understood in this context. In other words, is it possible for states on shoestring budgets to provide quality education or any education worth the name without raising tuition fees?

It will be recalled that in Lagos and Ogun states, tuition fees in tertiary institutions which had been raised in earlier years were dramatically reduced on the eve of the recent elections presumably to prevent the opposition from deriving electoral advantage from attendant frustrations. Now that elections are over and the economy is in dire straits, the conversation has resumed on strategies for funding higher education in a recessive economy. If federal and state governments can no longer fund higher education as a hugely subsidised enterprise, what options are open to state and society?

To be sure, the search for quality education in recession-lashed economies is not peculiar to Nigeria but indeed global considering that education budgets have been cut sometimes to the bone in many countries. As a way of moving forward the Nigerian debate, it is important to note that there is little available data on what exactly it costs to educate a Nigerian student in a tertiary institution. Hence, in the case of LASU for example, tuition fees moved from N25,000 for most courses to a high rise N350,000 and then dramatically back to N25,000. It is conceivable that although government was well intentioned in increasing the fees to that limit, it took for granted the opinions of other stakeholders, the need to graduate increases over a period of time and after prior warning as well as the capacity of parents to cope with the sudden jump. Besides, as mentioned earlier, the mindset that education ought to be free or nearly free, a key canon in the welfare philosophy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, remains strong in South-West Nigeria.

Short of closing down some distressed state universities as Ekiti State did a few years ago, it is obvious that there are no easy answers to the problem. It is possible however, to innovate at the margins especially by borrowing from coping mechanisms in other societies. One crucial source of funding which has been much touted but little implemented connects the deployment of the alumni network as a crucial resource. As many will recall, universities like Cambridge and Oxford in England received fillip and fresh momentum a few years ago through fundraising drives in excess of 1billion pounds by cashing in from the alumni network. This form of social capital is even more developed in the United States where endowments are sustained not necessarily by a few large donors but many donors offering unimpressive amounts which however build up to a large sum.

As I had occasion to write in this column recently, the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile- Ife, in the last few years has taken some impressive strides by drawing heavily on its alumni network. In the same way as hard pressed states are compelled to increase their internally generated revenue in lean times, universities and their funders have to come up with imaginative initiatives which can see them through the current lean times.

All too often, we have treated universities and higher education in general as status symbols to increase the prestige of those establishing them rather than as centres of learning. Such a mindset may have its political reward but is hardly conducive to quality education especially in times of adversity.

To go back to Oshiomhole’s poser, parents may be willing to pay more for higher education if there is a transparent and convincing inventory of their budgetary profiles and if such increases are graduated over a period of time, devoid of the usual ambushes and if genuine attempts are made to persuade stakeholders concerning the need for such increases.

A final option to explore is public-private sector collaboration designed to bring efficiency and enhance productivity.

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