 It's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and we've got to know that you're still there and watching us. And right now we're going to look at the fact that lawmakers are pushing for 32 more federal universities, 32. That's almost like the same number of states that we have in our country. We have management consultants, international development advisor for Lagos State in the person of Uludari Akilaja joining us this morning. Good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning to you. We have so many universities that ASU and Conwa are complaining that they are underfunded. Now the lawmakers want 32 more. Do you think this is a solution to our educational problem or it is going to worsen? So good. I had the new idea and I wondered what the intention was. But I've been around development for a while and I understand. So what is happening is that we're solving a problem which we're trying to build on a faulty foundation. So what is happening is that the universities are not sufficient to handle the number of young people that finish in a command of Secondary School. That's a problem. But they are coming to look at other areas of the challenge which includes the ones we already have, how functional are they? That's the question they should be asking. Instead of building more universities. I understand we need more universities but this is not the time for more universities. You are complaining the university lectures are not enough yet you want to do more universities. But this is the truth. If you look at those universities you will find out that most of the lawmakers want those universities situated in their constituencies. Okay. I have some statistics here. So as of right now Nigeria has a total of 52 federal universities and 32 more will make it 84. However right now in Nigeria we have about 514 universities some of which are private universities at 262. We have state universities at 147. We have federal universities at 52. Okay 63 states 147 private universities which sums up at 262. Now we have colleges of health which is 70 and private 17. The total number is 514. Now if we add another 32 it will be 546 universities in Nigeria. Do we need that much universities? Oh yes we do with respect to our population. If you go to nations that are smaller they have much more universities. So like I said I'm not sure the challenge is the number of universities but the challenge is the timing and the design of our already existing educational system. So our already existing educational system does not need more universities as it were with this current design. If we don't adjust that design make universities more productive and more autonomous then we will just be bringing more universities that go through the same already existing funnel that is dysfunctional. So this is the truth. If we don't properly understand what our challenges are we will not be able to come up with good solutions. So the challenge is okay we need more universities but can you make the already universities more functional? So we solve a problem one point at a time, one point at a time. I'm not just trying to rush through our prescriptions the truth the universities are not sufficient but this is not the right time to add more universities. Let's make the ones we already have very functional and productive before we think of adding more universities. Okay we're talking about the federal universities here and it also relates to the educational system as it is. Children who come out from secondary schools like you mentioned earlier don't always need to go to a federal university but they need to go to a university and you've said that the number in Nigeria is so much that 500 and something is not even sufficient. Now trying to find a solution to accommodate all the people that graduate from secondary school will it be your advice that if the federal government cannot fund the existing ones they should not have universities but they should make it easier for people who want to establish the private sector to come into the educational system and establish more universities. Do you think that will be part of the solution to the educational problem or infrastructural problem that we have in the educational system? Well based off data I'll say this you allow more people to drive the private institutions because if you look at you already available private universities and the solution it is given okay some private universities are already in the top ten universities in Nigeria early solving or actually a part of the the solution so yes allowing more private universities now many years ago not many years in 2018 here we've worked on some projects to bring in and in private university and I must tell you the requirements are incredulous I made my own use of the word they are incredulous a particular number of in-carriage of land the amount of money you must have so it's actually difficult for private institutions to get it and I understand because sometimes enrollment in universities is not the same as when you did get sent down or in secondary school it's much more than that the investment is massive and you will require a bit more standardization so you don't allow every company to get into space but I think it's too complex and they should try to minimize the requirements so they can allow more private institutions enter into it I need to add this also and that is that universities are really set up because of this bias of the environment we're in where everybody wants to go to university now that's a discussion for another day but I think we also need to start making our monotechnics and monotechnics also while start making them more effective start making them also have a capacity to train and raise people that will be competent individuals in the society I know that's a different argument we're having but we need to start looking at that so the pressure is not always on universities universities universities what's happening to our federal college of technology what's happening to our monotechnics and what's happening to all of that those two must be able to be able to help us manage the competition we're taking all right talking about investment in these universities we just the president is going to be presenting the 2024 budget tomorrow however in that budget we have a loan of one billion now if you're saying we have to create more universities isn't that going to take a chunk of the loans that we're getting so now this argument has been common that's been constantly here if if only we can reduce the amount of wasteages and the things we're wasting money on and the fact that investment into the things that really really matter in our environment I understand that maybe we were not making as much money as we should be making but the truth is the money we even have available we are not properly distributing this into the required places that it is meant to go into so I think one of the things we must concentrate on is redistributing what we already have if you look at the way we waste some point wastage taking place you will know that if we redirect some of our investment I think some of these universities will become a bit more buoyant and a bit more more more more self-sustaining because if you look at it for education education is not cheap you need investment into education the learning environment how to properly read great lectures and teachers making it an environment of research and development meets a lot of investment and until we start to think of how we can make it either self-sustaining or pumping investment into it by blocking wasteages and redirecting money into the places that matter we will just keep prolonging the days that we will have and a better point of chaos at some point all right so according to you you've said we need these universities we need more universities but here's my thought do you think the lawmakers should be talking about more universities how about these students that go to these universities and they come out without jobs shouldn't we be looking at job creation instead of more universities because now you're creating more universities more students are going into this school so imagine the influx of students that go on a yearly basis let's peg it at maybe 10 million now you're creating 32 more universities let's say that would that would now make it about 15 million they come out both for their youth service and then there are no jobs shouldn't the lawmakers be looking at creating jobs for these students then creating more universities at this time i agree with you and that's what i agree i agree with you and that's what i said it's a function of timing well the truth is most of our universities are already massively congested so if you go to certain universities the classes are maybe the 250 to 1 125 to 1 which did not even suit the national standards okay so more universities are not necessarily mean more people it might just mean the redistribution of people that already exist in these universities but i agree with you that what we should be having conversations about it's not even just job creation that's even at the end of the forum conversations which we have been is even curriculum content what are these people doing in the universities what kind of courses are we now designing at universities most of these courses are absolutely also some schools you can't believe that in ideal universities we're not even looking at maybe fintech or title media you know or things that are happening okay so curriculum is a very important part of we're not even looking at that so that's why i mentioned earlier that the problem is not and it's basic design thinking you are looking you are trying to solve a problem that you should put off till later now and there are many reasons behind that further universities being pushed at this point like i said if you look at those further universities most of them are domiciled in certain constituencies so for most people it's really like a constituency project and they're not thinking about the long-term effect of most of this decision so i agree with you that we should be looking at curriculum we should be looking at how do we drive internships we should be looking at what are these children learning where we are able to go to you know just i think we should be looking at now and i i agree with you but that doesn't get the fact that we need more universities problem is timing and implementation strategy okay well you said the first thing is to look at the ones that are already existing and see how it can be funded better do you think with improved infrastructure within the universities that we have we can take more students and have better quality education so certain universities were built for setting capacity and this is this is this is this is what this is what what what long-term thinking does now if more investment is made obviously there will be more infrastructure so there can be a level of improved there can be some improved level of learning in these universities okay lecturers more quality lecturers lecturers are probably excited with their jobs we have more more equipment to learn more research is being done then we can then because the problems don't stop you keep by trading you keep you keep moving from one level to another as you solve one another opens up so you see you keep moving from one level to another because when you are done building infrastructure in this particular university another thing can be a function of space okay can you can this university handle the number that come in so you set up more to be you know so it's it's a continuum you see and that's why it's design thinking we keep by trading from level to level so we can just see if you do this do so all the problems at this instance I will no longer have problems but I agree with you that if you develop infrastructure as of today look at the current universities we have change and keep having on this work on the curriculum of the existing universities to position children for the 21st century and its development and advancement then you can start talking about universities another another thought that I have is in yesterday's papers it is said that a lot of lecturers are moving abroad so what are the resources we have for people who are supposed to give knowledge to these students yeah so this reverential issue it's of course it's a long conversation with a function of labor function of what the standard salaries of federal government workers are you see so that's that's that's you see that's why I said there's there's a multi-level layer to these conversations what I think one of the things that's important is that lecturers need to start having a sense of fulfillment okay with the and they do all right the reason why they go to western world for instance and you see if you do a comparative analysis academicians in the western world will tell you that in comparative analysis to all that jobs they are still being paid low okay so but the difference is they have a social system okay they can get a house with mortgage for instance they can buy a car mortgage they can you know so there are all that things that can serve as pushing effects okay around them which we don't have in this country the lecturer is going to go to the same casual as you who is in private sector the lecturer is going to have to pay his rent for one year stretch okay with the the conditions are the same for everybody there's no there's no sort of social system you know that is creating a pushing effect for these lecturers in spite of their deliberation so you see you will always have that challenge and that's what is thinking the fly so people like even most of the lectures were ever relocated some of them are not even continuing in academics they just want to be out of the prayer when they can if you they can build a future for themselves so I think that's that's the most important Nigeria needs to start developing a social that has sort of system for people not in setting fields of course everybody have to benefit from it of course during the studio now imagine if you could buy your house and pay about one year or two years to get a pick up that'd be amazing okay well instead of building new universities could it be something to be considered that the existing ones if they are put in order as it is they have more satellite campuses that will take more students will that be a good proposal now so the challenge with satellite campuses you know we used to have satellite campuses in Nigeria and the challenge was actually a maintenance standard you know it's like franchise you know how you know you know you can go to different eateries they are the same eateries but you feel that all the food tastes different okay and that's the challenge with satellite campuses I think that multiple universities just wanted to be able to have some level of control about how people learn I wanted to be able to standardize the learning and that was why satellite campuses were affected a bit so I think I'll understand why they try to limit satellite campuses because the danger is will you be able to maintain the same quality of learning across or because the satellite campus you might not have the administrative monitoring of the campus when you are on the campus of the university center so what is the role of tech in all of this because in other countries for instance the UK there's distance learning right in the US as well in Canada there's distance learning so you can actually learn online shouldn't mind you already thinking of other means such as you know using tech to our own just to utilize tech to our own advantage and and just say okay we know that we have this amount of students that are not able to go into this university because we do not have enough however we're creating another avenue for them to still be able to learn for them to still be able to earn a degree and so they can learn online at the comfort of their own homes and we will still have lecturers and counselors and everyone who can monitor your progress I agree with you but I hope you know that your constitution does not allow distance learning for all the graduates it's a constitutional issue so then I think it's important to make us feel okay that's why I'm asking that shouldn't we be looking at that and even with the constitution yes we should be able to move that way because the constitution was created at some point however nothing is cast on stone you should still be able to move certain things be fluid yes that's the word be fluid with the constitution and say okay this is where the world is moving into right now the world has moved to tech that's where we are right now no matter how you look at it it is still what it is so we shouldn't be able to move in the constitution and say let us allow this thing because at the end of the day it's for our own advantage even hold that even globally not everybody does online learning and that's a business decision okay that's a business decision and I'll tell you why it's a business decision so if I'm learning distance learning and I'll have to pay $5,000 for instance because it's distance learning okay if I was to be on the campus maybe I'll be paying $16,000 okay so even the western world not all the costs are distance learning if you notice even the western world they will usually do post graduates you have more graduate distance learning courses because they understand that you would have your jobs and you're doing other things so you need to be able to infuse both of them yeah but why can't we have that why can't we have that because the post graduates are still struggling for space in our regular universities we have so so I know um I know of I don't know if I can mention the name of the university let's look at it but I don't know any university one university who is doing its MBA remotely okay it's another until I assume it's MBA remotely but of course I agree with you that most post graduate studies can actually be done online we don't really always have to go to these environments and of course it's also because of the control mechanism of our african environment okay must you see everybody you know it's until I see you I can go you know it's it's it's a psychological thing but I but I think I agree with you that if we do more post graduate studies remotely in the whole great space on the campus for the exactly most of the infrastructure you know and and let us most of the school so yes I agree with you and I think the lawmakers so for instance that's what the lawmakers should be looking out for easier of thinking for building more universities how do we decongest how do we for instance I know private university that is trying to say you know what from 300 level to 400 level can we start taking your courses remotely and leave the campuses for 120 levels yeah but guess what you're going to have another problem do you need as most lecturers to do distance learning as physically I have I think I might have a solution to that so most distance learning courses most times they create videos you have videos that's how you learn and one time I thought we were going to say I'm going to use AI it's technology sorry you need for a course only one lecturer can do that the problem with that is that you are going to move people out of job then you face us again okay well if we talk about the problems of Nigeria and especially the education our educational system in Nigeria we might spend days here talking about it like you said it's multifaceted it's layer upon layer so when we're trying to dissect every item we might not finish from here so we'll drop the ball here right now today on this topic we'd like to thank you so much for coming on the program this morning and bearing your thoughts uh to us thank you we were dying okay thank you we've been talking with uh Oluwadari Oluwadari in Nigeria management consultant and international development advisor here in Lagos state we were talking about the facts that the lawmakers are requesting for 32 more universities is it necessary or is it not yes it's necessary but there are so many layers that we have to surmount before we can get to that point according to his advice and this eventually is where we wrap it up on the show this morning my name is Nyam Ghul at Gadji let's do it again tomorrow my name is Remy Paulson have a good day