University colleges, a panacea to admission problem - Prof Iornem (2)

rofessor DAVID IORNEM, a Benue State -born resident in Kaduna is a management consul­tant, university teacher and of course, author of international repute whose works have made marks in management in Nigeria. In the part two of this interview with JIBRIN MIACHI, the professor who takes a look at the Nigerian education system in relation to admission for second­ary school leavers wanting to go to higher institutions without success, especially as it affects less privileged children, and profers solutions to the untoward situation, using the experience of countries like Ghana and UK. Excerpts: But the Open University is already offering such service.
No. The Open Universi­ty has been restricted by the NUC. They insisted that they should be attending classes. So, in Kaduna here, you have one big centre on Zaria road. You go there and sit to receive lec­tures. In fact you have to take attendance and if you fail to come, you will be punished. In distance learning and on­line learning, you don’t have to go and sit in any classroom. Of course, class tutorials can be organized but they are nev­er compulsory. Someone who thinks that if he goes there he will gain knowledge by ex­changing idea with lecturers and other students can go but it is not compulsory that he must go. So, the Open Nation­al University of Nigeria is far away from the ideal Open Uni­versity. To make it more useful to the people it is intended to serve, it must change. So, Na­tional Open University is not doing what I am proposing needs to be done.
Have you by any way ever sold this proposal to the gov­ernment?
Yes. First of all, I am prac­ticing it and I ran into prob­lem with NUC, a government department. But of course, I sent memos to some govern­ment officials, Permanent sec­retaries in the past administra­tions. We will continue to do that. I can tell you that during the time of General Sani Aba­cha, the immediate past Nige­rian High Commissioner to Canada and past Ambassa­dor to Mexico, he and I took it upon ourselves to study the idea of private university. We did that and put a memo to General Sani Abacha. With all sense of modesty, this is the first time I am voicing this out by way of talking to the press. It was I and the man (the imme­diate past Nigerian High Com­missioner to Canada and for­mer Ambassador to Mexico) that toured Thailand, Japan, then we looked at the system in the UK, we looked at the sys­tem in Spain and we came out with a memo which we tabled to Abacha. Abacha approved that memo that same day he saw it and directed that private university should be started in Nigeria. But if someone is writ­ing about the history of private university, he must first of all recognize the effort that Pres­ident Shehu Shagari made be­cause Shagari brought in a law for the establishment of a pri­vate university. NUC took that law including the law on Open University to General Muham­maodu Buhari when he took over and told Buhari that Pol­iticians are trying to damage education system, that they brought this thing about pri­vate university, they brought this thing about Open Univer­sity. They advised the General and he listened and scrapped the good effort that Shagari made by introducing private university and Open Univer­sity. It was NUC that did that. And even when Abacha was trying to bring in private uni­versity, they were opposing it. Likewise, when Obasanjo de­cided that he will bring the Open University, they were opposing it. So they have al­ways opposed this effort. One is left wondering why some­body should oppose things that are creating solution in other countries. Why should we be opposing it? But my faith in distance and open learning is that, it is like NUC running against a torrent of water. They cannot stop it. The internet is too powerful. You can oppose it at your own risk. Even the traditional universities are now trying to do online programme and that is how it will go. So, I am quite confident that a so­lution would be found but we have to be strategic about what is waiting for us in the corner ahead and then begin to do those things that can help us sail through properly, other­wise we will be caught in the middle of the road and we will begin to take haphazard half-measure that will not provide
 creative solution.
At the end of the day recog­nizing the degree or whatever certificate acquire through the system you are talking about will be another problem since the NUC appears to be in op­position.
Well, there are two points of view on that. If the person want a job with NUC, may be, you will have a problem but the society has no problem with qualifications acquired through distance learning. The society has always respect­ed those people because they have proven themselves to be real expert. Do you know that Awolowo never went to any university but he has Bache­lor of Commerce, Bachelor of Law? He studied by distance learning. He was at home in Nigeria here when he studied those courses. And in those days, it used to take two weeks for a letter to leave Nigeria and reach London. If you do assignment and send, it will take up to two weeks and final­ly he will get a feed back and get another assignment, do it and send it back in two weeks time. So, people like Awolowo have shown the way that if you study by distance learning and you are serious you will be a quality person. If you are talk­ing in terms of law, other law­yers can always say they are also like Awolowo. They cannot say they are better than Awolowo, eloquent and very logical in his approach to issues. Again, if you are talking of a politi­cian, some people can always say they are like Awolowo or they wish to be like Awolo­wo, a fine politician, qualita­tive politician. Take Professor Chike Obi, he got his Bachelor of degree in mathematics, first class and his master degree at home. That is the first Nigerian Professor of mathematics. He studied at distance learning. They are many others like M C Mbuh, Afe Babalola, Jaye Ola. Most of the chattered accoun­tants you see heading corporate organizations are ACCA by distance learning. So, through distance learning, you can get quality and society recognizes it. How many people do NUC employ? So, if they don’t recog­nize it that is their palaver.
Now, we have a new gov­ernment of a kind under the same Buhari you know. Have you reopened discussion with the ministry of education re­garding the proposal you are making because it is the chil­dren of the poor looking for ad­mission that suffer most. As we are talking, most children who left secondary school three to four years ago are still strug­gling for admission.
If I am given an opportuni­ty or if one will take my advice and implement, every Nigerian child who have five credits and wants to enter university will not have any problem. We will open up space using the meth­od that has worked for Ghana and UK. In management we have what we call benchmark­ing. If you believe that you are inventing a car today, you don’t have to say you are beginning to invent a wheel. The wheel has already being invented and it works very well. So, you take that. You can only think of adding new way to make your car unique. To solve problem in our education system, let us take what is working for Gha­na, UK, Spain and implement. In doing that implementation, we will begin to introduce in­novations that will make our system better.
You were into discussion with successive administra­tions but unfortunately your effort did not see the light of the day. Do you intend to re­new discussion with this ad­ministration?
Aluta Continua. So, yes.
How far have you gone then?
Nothing yet. Even the ad­ministration, how far have they gone? We are waiting for them. When they start doing things in the critical area, we will join them. That is another thing en­tirely. Are you convinced they are doing things already? They are not yet doing anything. We waited for them for three, four months, they have put up a team, and they are now fight­ing corruption and Gboko Ha­ram almost exclusive of other things. When we know what they want to do in certain ar­eas, we will make input.
From your assessment, do you see the government mak­ing move to address other is­sues than fighting corruption?
Of course, people have com­plained and I believe they are listening. The speech that the vice president had made some days back is indicative of the fact that people are not satisfied with how they are progressing or lack of progressing. I believe they will start addressing that issue. The president himself made a statement saying that Nigerians should not lose pa­tience, they should be patient. So, it seem that they are aware and getting the signals and will start doing something.
For the past one year since this government came on board, Nigerians have been suffering fuel scarcity. How do you see the effort of govern­ment and what do you think should be done to see that the problem becomes a thing of the past?
You see, we are depending so much on readymade technol­ogy to solve our problem. Re­fining oil is not a very big deal. No. Refining oil does not nec­essarily mean that you set up a refinery like Kaduna refin­ery, Warri refinery and Port Harcourt refinery. Oil can be refined in a very small oper­ation. We have heard of ille­gal refineries in the country. If they were huge, we will be seeing them but because they are very small and just some­where, we don’t see them. Even the security operatives look for them to discover them. Isn’t it? But are they not refining oil? They are refining oil and that oil is being used. If one is not certain of the quality of that oil they are refining, you can make sure that they do the right thing. That is the point I want to make. The people who are doing this illegal refining of petroleum products are Nigeri­ans and they have the technol­ogy. Why don’t you give them the encouragement to do it? It is the people who have big re­fineries that feel threatened by the activities of the so call ille­gal refineries. In a short time term, I am advising govern­ment to legalize the so call il­legal refineries to give them the freedom to produce petro­leum products openly without harassment and government should even have a policy of getting experts within and out­side Nigeria to advise these il­legal refinery operators so that they can do their job better and their contributions will con­tribute in no small way in solv­ing the problem of fuel scarci­ty. I am talking of long term, not next week. I am very sure that if you give them encour­agement, those Nigerians, to operate freely and to produce products that are competitive in the market, definitely you will solve the problem of fuel scarcity that has been hitting up off and on.