The reported increases in tuition fees by various tertiary institutions is unrealistic, a step hostile to education and the development of Nigeria’s human capital. It is unrealistic for the reasons that the sudden percentage rise as applicable to each institution is too steep, and the general income level of fee paying parents and guardians cannot by commonsense calculation sustain these fees.
In an economic system that sets (on paper to boot) on the one hand, N30,000 a month as minimum wage, pays a university professor of at least 30 years of teaching about N500,000 or $650 a month, and a director level federal public servant earns a similar amount, Nigerian universities have, effective from next session that begins in September, raised their tuition charges by between 100 and 200 per cent.
A few examples: The Federal Government-owned University of Lagos has raised undergraduate tuition fee from N 20,000 to N70, 000 per session, the University of Maiduguri from N29, 830 to N74, 000. University of Nigeria, Nsukka that charged between N 85,000 and N95,000 demands from next session, between N114, 650 and N120, 650 from new and old students. State –owned universities are not left behind in this race to charge more. In Niger Delta University in Bayelsa State, tuition will henceforth cost N100, 000 from N37, 000, Kwara State University fee goes up from N85,000 to N200,000, and even National Open University from N36,000 to N55,000.
The institutions have issued varying justification for these sharp increases but common to them are rising costs of teaching and learning materials, the market force of demand and supply, and general funding challenges.
Understandably, the increases have been vociferously condemned by, among other concerned stakeholders, the National Association of Nigerians Students whose education and future are threatened.
Whereas no one expects that education can or should be cheap, it is not at all sensible to allow education to be so expensive as to be beyond the reach of citizens.
It received wisdom that ignorance is costlier than education, it is also a truism that an educated citizenry is more desirable, and vastly more valuable to themselves and to society than a nation of ignorant people. Indeed, the National Policy on Education (NPE) is clear on the value of education. It admits in a five-point explication that ‘education is an instrument for national development and social change’; it is ‘vital for the promotion of a progressive and united Nigeria’; it ‘maximises the creative potentials and skills of the individual for self-fulfillment and general development of the society.’
It is even said that educated citizens are easier to govern. British statesman and abolitionist Henry Peter Brougham is quoted to have said ‘education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.’ If Lord Brougham is right, (and it will be most strange to disagree with him) then the converse is that the less educated a people are, the easier it is to enslave them. Is this the reason for the deliberate scant attention that Nigerian leaders pay to education – in terms of budgetary allocation, teacher training and motivation, and development of infrastructure and other necessary resources?
Or further to the point, the allocation to education as a percentage of the federal has, since 1999 rarely hit double digits. The 2023 figure is N2.74 trillion or 10 per cent of a total budget, i.e. expected expenditure, of N21.83 trillion. This is far from the UNESCO recommendation of between 15 and 20 per cent of national budget or even better, of 4-6 percent of GDP.
The extant constitution charges the government to make ‘security and welfare of the people’ its ‘primary purpose.’ In the context of public welfare, education of the citizens ranks second only to health. Besides, the constitution agrees with all reasonableness that education in general is a social need and enjoins government, in Section 18(1), therefore to ‘direct its policy toward ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.’ This is one of the ‘fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy.’ But society that seeks to develop needs a high level of education to produce leaders of superior thinking and leadership qualities. University level education is an especial necessity in this respect.
The extant National Policy on Education (NPE), in a five-point justification says it is meant, through ‘its programmes to bring about ‘the development of high level manpower within the context of the needs of the nation.’
But this variety of higher education is only one of ‘tertiary education’ that is designed to achieve seven goals that serve the interest of personal and collective development in Nigeria. These include contribution to ‘national development through high-level manpower training’; ‘production of skilled manpower relevant to the needs of the labour market’; ‘forge and cement national unity and promote national and international understanding.’
For a country (and its government) that acknowledges in so many words the desirableness and usefulness of higher education, it is confounding that it continually acts against its firm belief. To make university education in particular, and tertiary education in general, too expensive in the context of prevailing economic conditions, is to, directly and effectively, deny Nigeria the development of ‘high-level manpower’ that is necessary to make social and economic progress.
At between N70, 000 and N200,000 tuition fee per student per session, and this excludes other payments for accommodation, educational materials and other necessities, a professor or a directorate level officer with two children will find it hard to fund their higher education concurrently. How then are children of ‘lesser mortals’ supposed to fare in the face of this ‘education adverse’ policy?
The proposed hike is certain to deny more qualified students their rightful places in higher institutions. Only 600,000 of 1,116 021 eligible candidates were offered admission into the universities in 2022, according to the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB). To be offered admission does not translate to taking it up. It is not unreasonable to imagine that higher charges will prevent some of the students from taking up the offers. And what are they expected to do next?
It is suggested by persons familiar with the situation that deferment of admission is on the rise in higher institutions mainly because of students’ inability to pay their bills as and when due. This should not be so.
Let no one say that this country cannot afford far better education for its citizens than it currently does. If the leakages from public funds are blocked, if the cost of governance is drastically reduced, if the wastage of public funds on frivolities by public officials is reduced, if the natural resources are exploited and their proceeds transparently, judiciously applied to genuine national needs, there will be enough money to educate Nigerians. Chief Obafemi Awolowo held that ‘in order to attain the goals of economic freedom and prosperity, Nigeria must do certain things as a matter of urgency and priority. It must provide free education (at all levels and free health facilities for the masses of its citizens.’ He was, and still is, right.
Education is both an intrinsic good by virtue of its inherent properties; it is also an extrinsic good to the extent of its effects on others. Aristotle posited that the difference between the educated and the uneducated is like the living differs from the dead. Furthermore, the better educated people are, the more human they become and the more value they can add to society.
Having acknowledged in the NPE document that ‘the people are the most essential assets of any nation,’ and that education is ‘an instrument par excellence for social and economic reconstruction of the nation,’ governments –federal, state, and local government- must rise to their constitutional responsibility to educate Nigerians as required in Section 18(1) of the 1999 Constitution, and as spelt out in detail by the NPE.
The first step to this end is to make sufficient budgetary allocation at least as recommended by UNESCO. And every kobo appropriated must be judiciously applied.
The second step is to restructure the education system such that each jurisdiction can define its education goals, policy, and funding mechanism. This is the way of a truly federal system of government that, it may be recalled, this country once practised to the great benefit of its citizens.
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