davidif:

[size=28pt]Maybe its just me, but it seems that its the least intelligent people in university that end up being teachers. [/size]

proudly9ja:

Colleges of Education should be merged with the closest University to it and converted to that University's Faculty of Education.

Universities/Polytechnics should not be privatised. Rather government should introduce fees (say about 250,000naira per student). This is just a figure Ive thrown in but should be researched and studied before coming to an ideal figure.
However, government (state/fg) should pay the fees for any student that applies for it. The student will then be made to refund such fees in monthly deductions from his/her salary when he/she starts work. For those who can afford it, they should go ahead and pay their fees.

Deep Soul:


Someone mentioned making teaching compulsory for all corpers. That should only happen when certain things have been put in place - eg accomodation, a clear-cut, defined career path etc. If you force a corper to teach and he or she does not see any possibilities of career growth in the future, what do you expect at the expiration of their service year?

Fantastic suggestions

AjanleKoko:

You got that right.

Universities: I would mostly privatize this, and grant autonomy to the existing public schools, of course with firm guidelines in place. Nonsense ideas like post-UME would not be allowed, but I will encourage partnerships with corporate bodies, and allow them to charge whatever fees they like. I'll also audit them regularly , and grant only provisional accreditation for certain courses. Anybody who wants to go to university in my Nigeria, should pay for it. Of course, this should be adequately supported by government scholarships, bursaries, and student loans.

VPersie:

Very elitist remark. You people that have not seen poverty should stop trying to makes rules for the rest of us. If your idea is implemented, at least 70% of potential university students will not go to school.

proudly9ja:

Colleges of Education should be merged with the closest University to it and converted to that University's Faculty of Education.

Universities/Polytechnics should not be privatised. Rather government should introduce fees (say about 250,000naira per student). This is just a figure Ive thrown in but should be researched and studied before coming to an ideal figure.
However, government (state/fg) should pay the fees for any student that applies for it. The student will then be made to refund such fees in monthly deductions from his/her salary when he/she starts work. For those who can afford it, they should go ahead and pay their fees.

To achieve the above, government should start a 6 year programme from now. The programme will include registering EVERY individual that enters into a secondary school (government or private) in Nigeria. This registeration is simple biometrics registration that will take simple data like names, dob, etc. A number is assigned to each student and this number becomes his/her education ID.

The same number is then used for every activity (exams, etc) the student undertakes in secondary school and also becomes his education ID when he gets admitted into University. That way, government can track each student up to when he/she starts work and thus make dedutions when necesary.

Also, as a stop gap measure, ALL Corpers MUST be made to teach during their one year service (thats why it is called service!). However, this can be made easier for the corpers by making it fully residential. The FG should build at least 2000 capacity accommodation in EVERY state of the federation. This accommodation will serve as accommodation for corpers during their service year. With the cooperation of the Private sector, corpers should also be allowed free intra-city public transport service. This will help reduce the shortage of teachers we have.

Meanwhile, government should as a matter of urgency, improve the quality of teaching at teachers' training colleges. The degrees should also be made attractive and equivalent to a BSc in Education. Noone should be allowed to teach in a teachers' training college without at least a MSc and he/she must already be working toward a PhD.

symbianDON:

it is very wrong for anyone to assume that all teachers were the least intelligent people in their university classes. it's almost ridiculous when you remember the calamitous dearth of jobs in the country today. many university graduates who are teachers today never hoped they'd end up being teachers! nonetheless, they must survive somehow. also, let us not forget that not everyone lives in the big cities where there better opportunities of getting well paid jobs. would it be justifiable then to conclude that a graduate teacher in a small town in eg kogi state was the least intelligent in his undergraduate class all because he is now a teacher? i know quite a number of post nysc graduates who are teachers today and some of them, believe it or not, possess impressive degrees. at any rate, the relationship between the rate of job availability and number of jobless university graduates is that of inverse proportionality.

AjanleKoko:

Well, aren't people paying for university education already?

The idea is that 70% of the so-called 'potential university students' will go to technical schools and polytechnics, which will be free and government-funded.

If the unskilled suddenly become the minority, that will be difficult. And the quality of skilled education , as we have in the technical schools and polytechnics, will go up.

davidif:

Ajanlekeko,
MY GOODNESS, THIS IS THE MOST ELITIST REMARK I HAVE EVER READ IN A WHILE. SO THE REST OF US WHO ARE NOT THE CHILDREN OF MILLIONAIRES SHOULD GO TO TECHNICAL SCHOOL SHEBI? SORRY OGA, THAT THOSE OF US WHO GREW UP POOR OFFEND YOU, LET ME APOLOGIZE FOR NOT BEING AS WELL TO DO AS YOU ARE WHILE GROWING UP, ME AND 70% OF OTHER NIGERIANS WOULD TRY OUR BEST TO BE INVISIBLE SO THAT YOU DON'T EVER HAVE TO LOOK UPON OUR UNKEMPT APPEARANCE WHILE DRIVING IN YOUR BUGGATTI. BUT HEY WHAT DO I KNOW? I AM JUST A BAREFOOT KID FROM THE THIRD WORLD SO I HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE HERE AFTERALL THE INTERNET IS FOR RICH FOLKS LIKE YOU.

VPersie:

^^^^
Exactly ooooh. So if anyone in the 70% of potential Albert Einsteins and Phillip Emegwalis does not have school face, they should settle for being Oga Fatai the mechanic? Right?

Else we get what we have now, a completely worthless system, which produces unskilled directionless computer scientists and engineers who come to Nairaland and post questions like 'What direction should my career go now?' or something equally asinine

If you knew about Einstein, you would know he started his career as a clerk in the patent office.
Nobody said people should not go to university. We are saying, for university education to have any value, there must be investment in it. Since we have more than proven that government cannot really fund it, it's useless dreaming about free university education, especially for the sciences and engineering.

Else we get what we have now, a completely worthless system, which produces unskilled directionless computer scientists and engineers who come to Nairaland and post questions like 'What direction should my career go now?' or something equally asinine

First off, I can't even drive a Bugatti in Lagos, even if I owned one. Unless I get the amphibian model.
But seriously guys . . . wait a minute, davidiff? Were you not the gentleman extolling the virtues of a $200k Ivy League US MBA a while back?

You live/study in the US, don't you? Which one is more expensive, two years of community college, or four years of a medical degree?
You should think about it. There must be a reason why all these advanced countries place a significant cost on higher education.
Look at it, 340k Nigerian students supposedly passed JAMB with nowhere to go. Why perpetuate that?

In the first place, university education should not be a pre-requisite to good life. If you went to a technical school, and you became a highly-skilled builder, what stops you from making enough money to drive a Bugatti? I have a personal friend who relocated abroad with his masters degree in economics, to the UK. Now he's doing pretty good as a blue-collar bloke, with a construction business of his own. He even builds homes for people in Nigeria.

I think we just want to fan our false sense of self-importance by lining up all manner of worthless certificates, and we want the government to pay for our indolence. Sorry if I sound harsh, but I see this every day, numerous friends and family send me resumes of university graduates with their worthless certificates, all looking for a job, any job. I feel their frustrations and helplessness. But imagine if these guys were skilled technologists, at least they can earn a living using their skills, and if they so desire, they can further their education at university.

I even know a couple of people here in Nigeria, who left well-paying jobs to pursue MBAs in Harvard and Columbia (yes!). Now they are back to Nigeria, in the same company they left, doing the exact same thing they were doing. Imagine leaving a job working in Procurement, for a Harvard MBA, paying hundreds of thousands of $$$, and returning to the same job in the same Procurement. These type of people now bend the system and create a false elitist class, squeezing the company for titles and salaries they do not deserve, while giving absolutely nothing back to the organization. We are a developing nation, let's get real.

Just for the record, during my time, I actually sat for the technical college exams.

VPersie:

^^^^^

You did not address the issue of affordability and accessibility after autonomy is granted. What if I want to study engineering and autonomy increases school fees to 350,000, what should I do? Should I settle for being a carpenter?

If we want to have quality education, and get the recognition of the outside world for our programs, we need to run the tertiary education system like a business, with an expected output

In any case, for me, I would scrap the UTME and grant the institutions what they have all been asking for.

You did not address the issue of affordability and accessibility after autonomy is granted. What if I want to study engineering and autonomy increases school fees to 350,000, what should I do? Should I settle for being a carpenter?

You can always be an engineer, depending on the route you choose to adopt. Things will just revert back to the days of our parents, where many of them did an NCE or some technical course, got employed, and then paid their way through university, part time or via distance learning. The very brilliant ones got scholarships and bursaries. In any case, I don't think every school will charge 350k.

So if your folks have the money, you should be able to go direct to a university, and study whatever you like, provided you meet their minimum requirements. If not, you're going to have to try out for a scholarship or bursary scheme. Alternatively you can go to a technical or teacher training school for free, get their certificate, work for a while, and put yourself through school. This would even influence your choice of school, rather than perception.

Right now, because of the so-called democratization of tertiary education, this is what happens: You are subjected to UTME and post-UME, and eventually, unless you do exceptionally well, you have virtually no chance of studying in Unilag and OAU, or any of the frontier schools, even though they are not really quality enough.

You are now forced to either go to a rundown state uni or even a polytechnic, glorified secondary schools in terms of facilities and teaching staff, even if you have the money to pay for OAU or Unilag.

My nephew in the US who lives in New York state would like to go to Johns Hopkins in Maryland for his medical degree, but he has to settle for Rutgers. Do you know why? As an indigene of New York State, he gets to pay a reduced fee. Education should work like that in Nigeria.

If we want to have quality education, and get the recognition of the outside world for our programs, we need to run the tertiary education system like a business, with an expected output. You as an engineer should have a pre-determined training cost, and an expected ROI after graduation. We should be able to say, it cost about N1m to train an electrical engineer up to Msc level, and such a person should be worth, say, N5m per annum to a company that would require his or her skills.

Of course, there should be a cap as per legislation like you have elsewhere. For Nigerian students, public universities should have an upper limit beyond which they should not increase the fees, and ditto for private universities. That's what regulation should be about, as well as accreditation, and funding sources. We should be able to achieve such in Nige

Right now, because of the so-called democratization of tertiary education, this is what happens: You are subjected to UTME and post-UME, and eventually, unless you do exceptionally well, you have virtually no chance of studying in Unilag and OAU, or any of the frontier schools, even though they are not really quality enough.

You are now forced to either go to a rundown state uni or even a polytechnic, glorified secondary schools in terms of facilities and teaching staff, even if you have the money to pay for OAU or Unilag.

VPersie:

America may treat education as a business, but UK treats it mostly as a social service and the systems are just about the same, with the UK's system being more egalitarian: this is what Nigeria should strive for.

Thing is, VPersie, right now, everybody's got the pali. These days, when i see the deluge of foreign-degree holding Nigerians trooping into the country searching for jobs, it makes me wonder if, rather than spending the thousands of pounds or dollars studying in Britain and the US, one would not have been better off using that money to start up some small-scale business. Sounds crass, abi, but what is the real value of education nowadays? We're approaching a worldwide glut in 'educated' and 'qualified' people, yet economies are dying. Apart from personal pride and perceived prestige, there is little or no real value to academic certificates, if at the end of the day, we are doing it to fill the belly.

Is it not better to arm the people with real skill and not empty certificates? Look at Nigeria; for years we cried out that we didn't have an educated president, which was why we were sinking. Our last two presidents ar retired academics, in the sciences, no less. Are we better off?

If we want to have quality education, and get the recognition of the outside world for our programs, we need to run the tertiary education system like a business, with an expected output