Establishment of private university in Nigeria has been trending and thriving for the last 20 years at least. A clear-eyed view of their worth and contribution to the development of education in this country is warranted. In fact, it is long overdue. That said, this is not an inquiry into the merits or performances of the universities as institutions, but an overview of their ideal and viability. What is it that brought them into being in the first place? What particular mischief was there to be cured in the public sector, and has the private option delivered and (still) delivering? This discussion is, of necessity, intellectual in nature, we should make no apologies. We are talking of academic institutions; the citadels of learning in society. Opinion on the worth of private university vis-à-vis public ones, on a conceptual level, revolves around several extremes: charity vs profit-making ethos; founder’s interference vs hands-off approach; strict vs permissive campus culture; students as consumers of education products vs students as grateful recipients of knowledge; quality education for the few vs quantity education for the many; education as a right vs education as a privilege. On this last point, one can say, without equivocation, that university education has always existed as a privilege; not a right. That goes for any country in the world.
Some would even argue that any conception of university education as a right would impact negatively on quality. This is because the system would have to be diluted enough to accommodate everyone seeking access. A restricted access enhances quality, so the argument runs. You could say that Oxford, Cambridge and the other Ivy League universities of this world were founded on that premise. How then do you restrict access? By imposing cost, of course. This is precisely what private universities are particularly noted for. It is thus paradoxical, therefore, that private universities, which grew (more than any other factor) as a response to inadequate university places in the public sector, can themselves, become both selective and restrictive in essence. But, be that as it may, the larger question for now is; what is the best module for running or, more poignantly, governing a private university? The National Universities Commission adopts a blanket, one-size-fits-all approach in its regulatory oversight of all universities in the country. This is wrong. If all a private university has to do to be effective is simply carbon-copy the policy and culture of the conventional public university, then, what is the point? It defeats the whole purpose.
The starting point to any clear understanding of all this is to know that the conventional model for running public universities through the office of the Vice-Chancellor, answerable to the University’s Senate, is out of sync with the exigencies of private universities. Private universities are not just academic institutions, they are businesses. They are concerned with the balance sheet to a degree not known in public universities whose survival is guaranteed by the state. Private universities are necessarily involved in capital expenditure decisions on a regular basis, whereas, in the public sector, the most many Vice Chancellors are ever expected to do by way of capital expenditure, during their tenure, is preside over the renovation of one or two buildings around them, on the campus. Salary and expenditure in the public sector are determined by others at either state or federal level. They are shielded from any risk of insolvency that the private sector is exposed to at all material times.
What all this is telling us is that it is no longer enough to make an appointment of a Vice Chancellor based on academic merit alone; in the real world of cash-flow and sundry expenditure that private universities operate in, the Vice Chancellor not only has to be a highly qualified academic, they have to be business savvy as well. A private university is an academic-cum business entity. That is the way major Ivy League institutions around the world are built. Harvard University in America, for instance, is run on a budget of $4.5bn annually. Its net worth is around $45bn, more than the annual budget of the whole West African region combined. The university and others of a similar standing do not exist on hand-outs and subsidies from government; they are guided by the supply and demand logic of the education market. Both the mindset and skills-set required of a typical Vice Chancellor in a public university in this country are mostly suited for running an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) and other less complex charitable entities. Those are far removed from the competitive, here and now, parent-driven, student-driven mentality of the private sector.
We need a corporate governance structure in our private universities that reflects all the above elements. Consequently, like it is in football management, it has long been recognised that the sport is not just about the entertainment, important though that may be, but it has become a business as well. In that regard, the head coach (manager if you like) is appointed to oversee activities on the pitch, while the board takes care of the business side of things. Similarly, for a successful administration, the Vice Chancellor ought to focus on academic delivery alone, up to the university’s Senate, while there is an overarching board responsible for the health and survival of the institution as a business entity. This would not require another layer of bureaucracy, since the universities already have Boards of Trustees, which can and should be reconstituted to include the recruitment of highly qualified business-oriented executives alongside the existing honorary members on a fifty-fifty split. Consequently, rather than having a Vice Chancellor who ‘does it all’, as it supposedly is currently, the new structure would mean that the board would set targets for the Vice Chancellor and give them the operational freedom to achieve results on the ‘pitch’ (the academic front). Spending and investment decisions are left with the board and the Chief Executive Officer.
A separation between academia and business side of university management that takes account of the symbiotic relationship between the two strands (through an appropriate corporate governance structure) is a model fit for delivery of first class education system and competitiveness in our private universities. Finally, let us remember the immortal physicist, Albert Einstein, who gave the definition of madness as: “Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results”. As things stand, therefore, the NUC can either sit in their comfort zone, keep dishing out old-fashioned prescriptive formula to everyone, year-on-year, and expecting different outcomes, or the entire education sector wakes up, and force a move in a different direction. Happy and prosperous New Year to YOU.
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