Former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola, and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof Oye Ibidapo-Obe, recently completed a study on world ranking of universities commissioned by the Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie.

 The study’s terms of reference included examining the process of ranking conducted by global ranking institutions, determining those characteristics which inhibit Nigerian universities from top-ranking status, advising the NUC on how best to remedy the deficiencies in the Nigerian university system and recommending a ranking scheme to be hosted by the NUC for the Nigerian universities system and for regional and global systems.

 The price tag to get one Nigerian university into the global top 200 is put at N5.7b annually for at least ten years, bringing the amount required to be committed in the first decade of the project to N57b.

There is nothing wrong in the quest to get a world class university. It is a desire commonly expressed by developed and developing countries that want to be reckoned with in the field of education.

But before we start off with what may easily become another treadmill race, we need to think a few things through. Ranking is not a straight forward affair. There is some controversy as to how institutions are ranked . A recent research by three academicians from the University of Columbia came up with the following conclusions:

1. Ranking is subjective in nature and skewed towards things that are highly visible such as research activity, publications, citations, and major faculty award. There is little or no attempt to measure and assess teaching quality or educational activities.

2. Though several things are empasized in the statements on what makes a world class university, yet reputational rankings seem to be limited largely to the research dimension on the basis of statistical analysis.

3. With the exception of the reputational rankings of the top 10-12 institutions there is relatively wide disagreement on the status of other institutions.

4. English-speaking countries have an advantage in the reputational rankings

of their universities by virtue of the fact that the leading international

journals are published in English.

5. When viewing individual professional schools within a university or

academic departments in the U.S., it appears that the overall reputation of

the university has an independent influence beyond the

attributes of the schools or departments. That is, a school or department in

a prestigious university will be rated more highly than a statistically identical unit at a less prestigious university.

Prof. Julius Okojie and his colleagues at the NUC must factor these twists into their plan to get our universities favourably ranked at the top. However, while the NUC may be acting within its authority in commissioning a study on global university ranking, it is the Federal Government through its Ministry of Education that will appropriate money for such a project.

Can the Federal Ministry of Education justify such a project in the face of an education system that has collapsed? Can anyone in the Federal Ministry of Education tell us what our education policies are and more importantly whether those policies have raised the quality of education over the last 35 years?

Our education system, as any other, is integrated in such a way that an attempt to reform one aspect at the exclusion of the others will not yield any meaningful result. Oby Ezekwesili, Education Minister under former President Obasanjo tried to introduce a sweeping reform of the system but got swept away by change of government.

Though not everyone may have agreed with all aspects of her agenda, her attempt was the most comprehensive in recent memory. In a saner environment, the Federal Ministry of Education would have continued the reforms under the new Minster.

Sadly, everything evaporated with Oby's exit and we went back to the proverbial drawing board. Except that two years on, Nigerians do not know what this administration is drawing on that board. But whatever it may be, it must, as a matter of urgency, address the entire system from pre-school to postgraduate studies.

We do not necessarily need world class universities at this time. What we need are institutions that understand our basic problems and come up with simple but practical and effective solutions. As we go along, we can consciously begin to build capacities that may put us on the world stage. That is the strategy that countries such India, China, Brazil, Malaysia and other emerging economies have adopted. And given the economic progress made in those countries from the second half of the 19^th century until now, one can safely say that the strategy works.

If we go the way the NUC is thinking, there is the likelihood that in year 2020 we would be talking, not about how a Nigerian university made it into the so called top list, but how we missed the mark after spending so much money. Let us avoid another tragedy of failure. The NUC should be preoccupied with how to rescue the entire university system instead of wasting precious efforts at making just one university to be rated among the top world 200.

Robot  # 1 | 26.10.2009 07:59

...Read the full article.

Lapalapa  # 2 | 27.10.2009 04:06

Many thanks for that one. It's great to know that our government is even concerned about the rankings of our universities; to me, this is a good step in the right direction, whatever the criteria for those rankings. At least it shows some Nigerians are still concerned about quality. Yes, it may look like our educational system has collapsed but somehow, I still believe firmly in the quality of the Nigerian graduate. I am sure we have the brain power to rank among the best on this planet and even in places extraterrestrial! What I don't understand is how we ended up with so many universities in the country-state, private, federal, religious etc. This is already creating a class problem that doesn't bode well for our educational system. I was looking at admission to U.I. recently only to find out that I wouldn't qualify for admission if I were to apply with the same results with which I got into the same course in the same university over 2 decades ago! If those students admitted were real and the tests were fair, which I have no doubt about, I think the quality is actually improving. But then, I turned around to look at admission to many other universities and was shocked to see that all that was needed was simply an expression of intent to attend university, and you are in! This is an issue somebody should address; we cannot fold our arms and listen to the news of 5,000 graduates applying for one job without finding a way to understand and solve the problem. My point: if the federal government has a dream of getting a top-ranked university in Nigeria, it is a laudable goal that should be supported and vigorously pursued. But then, the government should identify a fertile land to sow such seeds. We may not have a Princeton, Johns Hopkins or Oxford in Nigeria yet but, given all the infrastructure and support needed, we have the brains that can best Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, or Tokyo! Our government should at least dare those brains. Believe me, there can never be a sustainable development in any society that has no seat in the hierarchies of knowledge economy.