 Well, the Jaguar syndrome is not leaving us any time soon. Now lecturers, abandoning universities, it's leaving VCs and lecturers and others, every stakeholder in the education sector worried. We have our guest this morning to talk about this, Dr. Peter Ogudoro, Education Researcher and PhD in Education. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to join you. Good morning. Yeah. Okay, whenever we are on this program, we always talk about solutions and all that and you give a lot of solutions which seem not to get to the ears or even if they get to the ears of the relevant people, these solutions are never implemented. Now, it's a worrisome thing that lecturers are living even in an education system that we are already complaining is not up to par with other climes. Now the lecturers are living, everybody's living. Where do we go from here? Well, where do you want to go from here? Is a country run by, you know, political leaders who don't care about the ordinary people in the streets and the simple reason is the fact that their own children are not here. They train them in America, Canada and the US and obviously do not wear the shoes and so don't seem to understand where the shoe pinch is and definitely have no incentive to make sure that the education system in Nigeria works. But they are making a mistake because if we continue like this, a time will come when the system will become so terrible that one word, the other, they will have to also bear the brunt. So let them get the one in now and begin to work hard to make sure that the ordinary person in the street is able to breathe. Okay. I don't even want to think about what education has in the 2024 budget because I don't think it still makes the cut for what is recommended by the United Nations. But what are these key factors that are making the lecturers leave? You know, we've been saying this like a broken record but for purpose of emphasis, what are the salient issues that need to be addressed if we want to retain these people lecturers here? Because one of the headlines today, we just saw that the president was begging, that was what the headline was, begging doctors that are abroad now to return. And I'm sure it will be the same thing begging lecturers to return. But if these things are not put in place, maybe that will just be a tall order that might never be realized. So what are these very, very critical issues that need to be addressed? Well, the Nigerian University lecturer is poorly remunerated. I'm not aware of any professed lecturers and other clients or people who studied in the same classrooms with us. What most people tend to forget is the fact that many university lecturers in Nigeria studied in England, in America, in Canada, in Germany. And so some of us chose to return to Nigeria because we realize that Nigeria remains our roots and we have a certain obligation to help Mectin's work here. But as we decide that obligation, we must not forget that we also have families to cater for. And so where you pay a PhD holder less than $500 per month, when we know that if we had chosen to remain abroad, we'd be earning a minimum of $4,000, $5,000 per month. You can understand why it doesn't make sense for people to stay here. So all you need to do is to pick up your bag and return to where you're coming from. And of course, intellectual property is internationally denominated. It's a currency that you can take to anywhere in the world and be able to purchase whatever you want. We are in high demand. South Africa needs us, America needs us, Canada needs us, Germany needs us. Every country in the world is looking for people who have invested time and effort to acquire the kind of intellectual capacity it takes to move society forward. And so, unfortunately for us, after we have gathered all this and made the effort and sacrificed to be able to stand in classrooms and train the next generation of leaders, people here don't seem to understand that education remains the bedrock of development. And so if you continue to ignore your teachers and not appreciate the fact that you don't produce a PhD holder in 10 years, it takes a lot of time and sacrifice for you to be able to meet a PhD holder who can stand in your classrooms and help the young people to learn what they need to know to be able to make a difference in their society. If you continue to ignore all of this, then you will continue to encourage people to leave their country and go to other places to work. That's a major factor. We also are aware that the governance system in Nagoya University is very poor. The universities here, especially the public service universities, do not have what we call autonomy. So if, for example, a vice chancellor recognizes that there are no chemistry professors in his university, and he wants to employ it from wherever he can find a suitable to fill the gap. If that university is a federal university or a state university, it might take you a whole year to process the papers to be able to fill the gap. So that lack of autonomy makes it difficult for people here to enjoy their job because you know the solution, but you cannot apply the solution without having to follow a very difficult bureaucracy to make things happen. Even when there is money in the covers of the university, for you to spend it, you still need the approval of the National University Commission. You need the federal Ministry of Education to intervene, to give you the authority you need to be able to do simple things. And that's not the way to run universities. Universities are not like other institutions. We are intellectuals. We also have a high sense of responsibility, given the kind of training we have gone through. And so once you find people you can trust to run the system, you should give them the autonomy to make it a sample. That autonomy is not available here to the best of my knowledge. And of course, our laboratories are decrepit. So if you teach the sciences, you will know that you lack the tools you need to be able to produce good engineers, produce the right medical doctors, produce the other scientists you need to run a modern society. So you produce young people who go into the industry and you are very afraid that these young people are not going to be able to deliver because you didn't have the equipment to give them the skills, the tools they need to be able to make the difference that society demands of them. So that, again, is something that is worrisome. And you don't want to continue to deceive yourself into believing that you have produced people for society where you know they cannot deliver. So, so many factors. It's a multi-dimensional challenge that we have in our country and it doesn't look like anybody in position of authority is thinking seriously about how to resolve these challenges. OK, well, I wish we had time to talk more about this because we cannot take each of this one individually and maybe still meet up with time, but let's see how it goes. You raised three critical issues. The first one is remuneration. The second one is autonomy to the institutions. And then the third one is infrastructure, not being available in these institutions of higher learning, especially. Now, let's take the issue of autonomy. How much autonomy does the institution have, or the university, for instance, need to function well? Because we need to know whether it is the autonomy that you can take decisions. But when it comes to funding, you still run to the government or you want them to stand alone, fund themselves, pay their staff, do whatever they need to do and just be answerable and giving reports to the government. What level of autonomy is needed for the university system to function appropriately in Nigeria? Well, we need to give universities autonomy to run those institutions in terms of teaching and learning. They are the experts in these areas. Politicians cannot teach the vice chancellor what should be the appropriate curriculum to produce an engineer, because the politician does not know what it takes to produce an engineer. So you should trust that the vice chancellor, his left-hand, can work with orders, take orders, who know what they're doing to give you a curriculum, which will enable you to produce the right engineer, the right medical doctor, the right teacher. They are the ones who went to school to learn those things. Trust them once you have employed them to do that job. But it's not a good idea to think about the possibility that universities in Nigeria at this point in time can fully fund themselves. It's not a realistic idea, because we live in a poor country. Per capita income in Nigeria is less than $3,000. Per capita income in Norway is over $80,000. The money in Norwegian ends in two years. The average Norwegian ends in two years. We take in Nigeria an entire lifetime to end, really. And that's something that is very problematic. So parents here cannot be asked to bear the full burden of giving their children the type of education that will enable Nigeria to develop. Because parents here haven't got the money it takes to pay school fees at the level that will make it possible for universities to self-fund themselves. So government must recognize that it has a duty to fund higher education. And when we're able to do this, that will be able to produce intellectual capacity in Nigeria needs as a matter of urgency to produce the kind of solutions we need to fast track national development. And so it's a bit tricky. You may be wondering why do people want to determine when they cannot self-fund themselves. The reason why that is the case is the fact that education is a social good. And so government must fund it. Even societies where per capita income is very high, where parents can pay school fees, parents are still not given that responsibility. Take the example of the Scandinavian countries. The per capita income in Finland, for example, is above $40,000. That's a total of Nigeria is less than $3,000. In Finland, parents don't pay school fees, right from kindergarten up to PhD. Government takes responsibility because government recognizes that education is an investment, not a cost. And that once you get it right, every other problem gets sorted out. Nigerian politicians don't seem to have started getting this idea. And even those of them who have had don't believe it. And so they think that education is something that you put money into it and then by tomorrow you must get returns. That's not how it works. We are not, this is not a matter of going to Dubai to buy an air conditioner. Then you come and sell it in two days and you get back here for returns. Education takes time to bring in returns. But when the returns come, the returns come in ways that make everybody joyful. So we have to create this awareness among the people who are in our country and get them to exercise the patience it takes to get the return from education. So that responsibility must not run any campaign that would discourage the government from shouldering. This is government's responsibility to fund education so that we can get the quality manpower we need to make all other sectors function. Okay, talking about remuneration now, if the government were to raise the remuneration to something, at what percent do you think it should go? Well, I won't be talking about percent because that may be a problematic thing for the average person listening to us to understand. But the way to look at it is recognize that you have made a mess of your currency called in Naira. And so we live in a globalized world. The lecturer who is teaching in UI in Amadu Bello has access to the internet on the 24-7 basis. So he knows what his counterparts and other parts of the world are earning. So when you pay him money in Naira, he converts it to dollars. And he knows that when you give him, for example, you know, 500,000 Naira, that money means only 500 dollars. And he knows that if he chooses to go and teach in South Africa, in America, for example, where he has the capacity to also teach, many Nigerians teach in those places because we are not inferior. We studied in the same classrooms with these people who teach in this place. The reason why we're here is because we think we have a duty to help our society to move forward. But we must not make that sacrifice at the expense of our family's welfare, okay? So always try and do that conversion. Yeah, we may not be able to pay as much as America is paying, but if America is paying $5,000 to a professor, you know, you should pay at least half of that to keep us here so that we can meet our minimum needs. We are not seeing that happen at the moment. So paying, for example, an associate professor less than 500,000 Naira in the month, this is scandalous because that is not up to 500 dollars. And I know that, you know, my children, who are even on the graduate study in America are any more than that in the month and they haven't even, you know, one of them hasn't even graduated. And so if he's able to end up to that, why are you paying an associate professor less than that in Nigeria? It doesn't make sense. And then we see how much money we are spending on politicians. We are aware, you know, from all that we read from what, and see from what people like you are putting out there, that senators took over 100 million Naira to buy just one Jeep for each of the people who are in parliament. And then, you know, for Christmas, they got some money for that and these things run into, you know, millions of Naira. So why are we having difficulty recognizing that the people who are producing everyone who functions in the Nigerian economy deserves to be adequately remunerated for the job that he does that is very critical for national development. So Nigeria is a very difficult place to think about at the moment because politicians are truly not getting it right. They are messing up. They are wasting so much. They want, they go abroad, you know, to go and receive training, we can give them here. They go abroad to go and do jamboree, going for seminars and, you know, conferences that they don't even understand. They're not even staying in the conference rooms to listen to what people from around the world have got to talk about. They just go and collect Esther code. So why can't you devote just 5% of what politicians are wasting to improve our university system, which holds a better promise compared to what you can get from politicians who got to, you know, to talk things that don't matter in parliament. So my friend, tell your friends who are running the country that it's time for them to repent and give education its pride of place. The scheme of choice has come. Well, they are not my friends. They are my employees. Unfortunately, they don't know that I employed them because I'm a citizen of Nigeria who said, go and do what I'm sending you. But they're not doing what I'm sending them. So one day I might just need to sack them. So they are not my friends. They should take note of that. Well, yeah. Well, that's another thing. Dr. Uduro, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's always a pleasure having you around. It's my pleasure. We'll enjoy the rest of the day. You too. So that was Dr. Peter Uduro, an education researcher. He holds a PhD in education, always proffering good solutions. But we hope that it gets to the ears of the people who really matter so that some of these things can be implemented and we move forward. Well, we'll take a short break and we'll return with our second hot topic. Stay with us.