Professor Ignatius I. Uvah, PhD (Cantab)
Agricultural, Management & Educational Consultant
Maitama, Abuja, Nigeria
Summary

 Outline of the presentation:
 Introduction: Conceptual considerations;
Evolution of university education in Nigeria
 Challenges for 21st Century Nigerian
Universities: National; Institutional
 What is being done now
 What more to do
 Role of Academic Planning
 Conclusion
2012 CODAPNU Annual Conf., Abuja
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Conceptual Considerations:
What is a University?
 Definitions:

 University:
 An institution for post-secondary studies and training usually
leading to the award of degrees; diplomas and certificates;
 A place of education at the highest level, where degrees are
given (Longmans Dictionary);
 “an academic institution … for the award of degrees and
other academic qualifications” NUC (1997)
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Conceptual Considerations:
What is Academic Planning?
 Definitions cont’d:

 Academic Planning:
 “An interaction process in which institutional and academic unit
goals, and the means for achieving goals are negotiated between
faculty, administrators, students and other parties within and
outside the university. Thus academic planning integrates concepts
and activities from academic programme review, budgetary
planning, and academic administration” - Larry R Jones; Univ. of
British Colombia
 “Academic planning occurs anytime a decision (is made) about
what academic programs, degrees or research the institution will
support ” – Society for College and University Planning, USA
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Conceptual Considerations:
Academic Planning cont’d

 Definitions cont’d:
 Academic Planning:
 “Academic Planning examines the importance of building a college
or university academic plan alongside the institution's strategic
plan” – Daniel James Rowley and Herbert Sherman
 “The desirability of academic planning has increased; however, the
meaning of academic planning remains imprecise” – Bruce Fuller,
California Assembly
 Academic Planning is the front end of Management; i.e. Planning is
an integral part of management
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 1
Federal Universities:
 University education in Nigeria started with establishment of
the University College, Ibadan in 1948 following the Elliot
Commission recommendation of 1945.
 Subsequently, the University of Nigeria was established in
1960.
 In 1962, the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Obafemi
Awolowo University Ile-Ife and University of Lagos were
established. - 5
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 2
Federal Universities:
 University of Benin was then established in 1970.
 In 1975, the seven second generation universities were
established at Jos, Calabar, PortHarcourt, Sokoto, Ilorin and
Kano. - 13.
 During the 1980s, the FGN converted its military training
school (the NDA) to a University.
 In 1980, the FGN established seven universities of
Technology at Abeokuta, Makurdi, Akure, Bauchi, Owerri
Minna and Yola. The first two were converted to
universities of Agriculture in1985.
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 3
Federal Universities:
 University of Abuja was established in 1988.
 In the early 1990s, the Federal Government took over the
state universities at Awka and Uyo and converted them to
Federal universities.
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 4
Federal Universities cont’d:
 Later in 2007, FGN established Federal University of
Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) at Effurun.
 Recently, the FGN established nine more universities at
Lokoja, Dutsin-Ma, Lafia, Dutse, Kashere, Wukari, NdufuAlike, Oye-Ekiti and Otuoke.
 The FGN, about two months ago, converted the Police
College at Wudil to a university.
 Thus there are 37 Federal universities as at now.
 Federal universities are often categorised by age into 1st, 2nd
and 3rd generation institutions.
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 4
State Universities
 The 1979 Constitution placed education on the concurrent
legislative list. States could therefore create universities
 In 1980, the first state university, RSUST, was established at
Portharcourt
 Subsequently, more state universities were established during
the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
 Nigeria now has 37 state universities.
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Evolution of University
Education in Nigeria 5
Private Universities
 The promulgation of Decree (now Act) 9 of 1993 made
provision for the establishment of private Universities.
 50 private universities have to date been issued licenses
to operate.
Total Number of Nigerian Universities
 Consequently, there is a total of 118 approved Universities
in Nigeria.
 In addition, there are 4 Inter-University Centres
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Purpose of Planning

 Why Plan (in the context of universities)?
 To ensure orderly development of individual universities
and the university system; and
 To ensure achievement of national and institutional
objectives.
 What are the challenges to orderly development of the
universities?
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National Challenges

 National Challenges for universities:
 Access:
 Carrying capacity (system-wide), Admission quota
 Enrolments




Funding: Core provision (by proprietor)
Reward structure;
Quality & Relevance – Policy constraints; Curriculum
Environment & others – Aids; Globalisation.
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Institutional Challenges

 Institutional Challenges for universities:
 Funding: IGR;
 Carrying capacity: Student enrolment, Teachers, TSR, admission
quota; and Infrastructure and facilities: Academic spaces; Municipal
facilities; Learning resources; and ICT;
 Governance – Leadership & tensions; Planning;
Conditions of Service & Brain drain; accountability;
Campus vices; Maintenance culture
 Quality & Relevance – Programs and Curriculum;
 Environment & others – Aids, ICT, Community
relations.
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Access

 Objective of Government is to provide adequate access to
university education for those who desire it; as a vehicle for
socio-economic transformation;
 Although degree student enrolment in the Nigerian
university system, which in 1948 was 104, is now well over
950,000, the system has been unable to cope with the
demand for university education.
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Funding for Federal Universities
Trends

AMOUNT RECEIVED (N)
YEAR
2004
Recurrent
Capital
41,840,735,050 9,462,455,178
2005
2006
47,290,489,886 9,397,660,000
73,161,996,247 5,760,105,402
2007
78,482,540,961 7,184,637,934
2008
94,552,983,733 13,197,505,486
2009
103,008,978,422 9,995,998,748
2010
163,729,239,325 20,429,524,422
2011
167,667,580,574 15,956,588,967
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Funding for Federal Universities
(₦billions)

180
160
140
120
100
Recurrent allocation
80
Capital allocation
60
40
20
0
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
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2011
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Funding Issues

 Current challenges: Funding:
 Federal Government provides a budget cap (envelope) based
on projected earnings and not on the needs of the
universities;
 Federal universities are not allowed to charge tuition fees;
 States often spread finances for their universities thin over
multi-campus systems;
 Consequently, many universities have budget provisions well
below their needs.
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Carrying Capacity
 Student enrolment:

 Over 950,000 degree students currently are enrolled.
 Teachers:
 Over 36,000 academics in Nigerian Universities currently
 Teacher/student Ratios: The composite TSR of 26.4 is
high and yet is not reflective of the atrocious STRs for some
programmes at many of the universities.
 Divided attention: Frequently, each academic staff teaches
at three or more universities
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Infrastructure and other Facilities

 Infrastructure and Facilities:
 Inadequate classroom, lecture theatre, library,
laboratory, workshop and studio spaces; poor electricity
and water supply; poor telecommunications and ICT
 Inadequate equipment; often insufficient; and sometimes
obsolete
 Tendency to enroll more students than infrastructure
and facilities can support.
 Learning Resources:
 Dearth of Books and Journals; Lack of, or poor access to
Internet resources
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Governance 1

 Governance:
 Succession is often acrimonious, rancorous &
disorderly;
 Frequent cases of tension among Managers
 Poor management practices: Delegation; Finances
 Poor planning; often no strategic plan; expired
academic and physical plans
 Poor Conditions of Service; thus Brain drain
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Governance 2

 Governance:
 Impunity: Indiscipline and Campus vices:
 Admission racketeering, exam malpractice, marks-forsale deals (sorting), plagiarism, sexual harassment,
extortion through handouts; cultism, etc. often go
unpunished
 Staff truancy: Some academics give 2-3 lectures only for
a 15-week semester & cover only a small fraction of the
curriculum
 Culture of inefficiency: Student registration; Transcripts
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Governance 3

 Governance:
 Reward Structure:
 Uniform wage structure does not encourage productivity
 Poor Maintenance Culture
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Quality and Relevance
 Policy constraints:

 Cumbersome curriculum approval process at national
level;
 Federal no-tuition-fee policy – impoverishes universities
leading to inadequate resources for their programmes
 Illegal ( & poorly provided) programmes and
affiliations
 Relevance: Curricula seek merely to meet national
standards and are not solution-oriented.
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Miscellaneous Challenges

 Environment and other challenges





ICT and Globalization
Irregular academic calendar
No or poor Industry-University Cooperation
Aids Pandemic: Loss of valuable human resources
Community relations: Encroachment on university lands; Poor
outreach and community service provision
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Current Interventions 1:
Regulation of Universities

National Universities Commission
 With 5 universities in 1962, FGN begin to experience
challenges with coordination and regulation of these very
complex institutions;
 FGN therefore established NUC in 1962 as a unit in the
Cabinet Office to ensure orderly development of
universities in the country; NUC attained statutory status
by Decree 1 of 1974.
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Current Interventions 2:
Orderly Admissions

Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board
 Universities (through CVC) experiencing waste of space
from multiple admissions for the brighter candidates,
requested FG to create a structure for coordination of
university admissions;
 Thus FG established JAMB to conduct entrance
examinations and, in consultation with the universities,
admit new entrants to the institutions.
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Current Interventions 3: Roles
 Federal Government






Regulation of universities & coordination of admissions
Staff Motivation – periodic wage reviews/increases
Increased funding for universities
Improved quality of governing councils; stability
Established more universities - access
 National Universities Commission:
 Curriculum development for relevance – MAS (1989), BS (2001) and
BMAS (2004)
 Accreditation: UG, PG; Institutional
 Regulation, Monitoring and Evaluation: New state & private
universities; New programmes; etc.
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Current Interventions 4

 Industries
 Advocacy & support for Public-Private-Partnerships: qualified
success
 Donations, Endowments,
 Etc.
 Universities:
 Campaign against cultism (with assistance of FG);
 Regulations against “student extortion” through handouts;
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Whither Academic Planning? 1

 Role of Academic Planning: Advisory as part of Mgt.
 Introduce Performance Audit:
 Management to constitute a committee either led or resourced by
academic planning.
Committee to:
 Agree targets and performance indicators with those to be assessed
 Do quarterly, half-yearly or annual audits of units;
 Get feedback from both assessors and the assessed units on
effectiveness of audit assessment;
 Advise Management on corrective measures.
 Strategic Planning:
 Do university strategic plan with broad participation of staff; key
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Whither Academic Planning? 2

 Role of Academic Planning cont’d:
 Hold academic staff accountable through Student
assessment of their teachers:
 Assessment at the end of courses taught and projects supervised
 Develop formula for collating to produce an annual grade from
assessments
 Formalise sharing of the university’s academic staff
with other institutions:
 Develop regulations to guide those academics who wish to teach at
universities other than their primary assignment university.
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Whither Academic Planning? 3

 Role of Academic Planning:
 Promote multimedia equipped and ICT-enabled
lecture theatres and halls:
 Equip with PowerPoint presentation equipment; voice amplification
equipment; etc.
 Introduce Internal Efficiency Strategies:
 Develop consensus & reduce duplication of effort between
Education, on the one hand, and Humanities and Sciences, on the
other.
 Same for Medicine (and other science-based professional
disciplines) and Science.
 Introduce proven ICT-based student registration systems
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Whither Academic Planning? 4

 Role of Academic Planning cont’d:
 Succession:
 Develop a well defined institutional succession strategy;
 Do management training for mid-level managers.
 Develop and implement a “Bill of rights and
responsibilities” for staff and students.
 Improved funding strategies:
 Determine unit cost; base budgets in part on unit cost;
 Other creative strategies next:
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Whither Academic Planning? 5

 Creative fund generation strategies:







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Small and medium scale business
Alumni contributions
Manufacturing
Rental of spaces and recreational facilities
Consultancy services
Marketing research results
University-industry partnerships
Cost sharing for municipal services
Parents Forum
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Conclusion

 Multifarious challenges threaten the mission of universities; Planning
can help bring about positive change;
 Universities willing to reposition their institutions and embrace reforms,
can achieve their missions;
 Academic Planning functions as part of Management and must
therefore play a key role in ensuring orderly development of the
institutions and continual improvements in their processes, programs
and projects.
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Thank you for listening.
And God bless
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