Varsities need entrepreneurship training — VC, UNILAG

 

In this interview, the Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, Akoka, Professor Rahmon Bello, tells ARUKAINO UMUKORO why Nigerian universities should embrace global partnership 

What is government’s role in the provision of quality and affordable tertiary education for Nigerians, despite their economic status?

Globally, the provision of qualitative education is the responsibility of both the private sector and government. What is important is to have enough access for all intending students. On affordability, we should know that qualitative higher education is not cheap by any means and governments cannot fund it all by itself. What is important is for governments to ensure that no student is denied opportunity of higher education due to inability to pay once he gains admission. This can be handled via many concepts. The institution of merit-based scholarship and bursary schemes will be paramount while the recreation of a loans scheme will, in the long run, take care of all other missing links. However, funding of higher education, particularly the sustainability of quality, requires funding from all and sundry. Philanthropy plays a major role too. Whether you call it a government university or school, nothing stops individuals from contributing to that school by making donations, in the form of cash, buildings or bequeathals. When you talk about a school offering qualitative education, you know that someone is paying for it.

Individuals and companies who have the good of the society at heart should be able to make contributions. If a school needs a laboratory or a mechanical workshop, and an individual or organisation provides it, it means that that school will be able to offer good engineering education but at a lower rate, even though it’s a public school. What matters is the availability of these facilities. For instance, in the University of Lagos, if we have an individual coming to donate a facility that helps us provide a world-class training in Mechanical Engineering, we would still be a government university but offering that quality of training in that field. We have had an individual, Biodun Shobanjo, who donated a whole building to the Department of Mass Communication. That building today is an outstanding facility in that department.

ADVERTISEMENT

Do you think Nigerian universities should partner with their foreign counterparts in education?

In our globalising world, universities provide the keys to unlock and nurture the opportunities to translate ideas to realities; these can shape and reshape our societies and make our world a better place to live in. Through robust research and curriculum that speak to the needs of their environment, universities have always played a crucial role in providing the foundational and navigational tools with which different societies have addressed existential challenges such as development and unemployment. In this regard, University of Lagos is not an exception. Through a curriculum that addresses human capital needs of the country, the university has played a pioneering role of bridging the gap between the town and the gown in the last 50 years. To sustain this global reputation, UNILAG consistently seeks active collaboration with local and international institutions. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with Nigerian universities forming partnerships with their foreign counterparts in areas where they deem necessary for mutual benefits. Partnerships are designed to be beneficial to the cooperating entities. We believe that there is a needs gap in our educational institutions in Nigeria. We believe that our foreign counterparts, by virtue of their level of development, are ahead of us in some areas—technological development and applications, infrastructure and other aspects of tertiary education. We believe that we can partner with them and the partnership can take different forms. We can have exchange of scholars with visiting scholars coming over here to share their experiences with us, while our scholars also spend time in partner institutions for hands-on experience and research collaborations. Such exchange also enables updates on application of new technologies because technology is evolving fast.

How should this exchange programme be done?

We should have exchange programmes for students to be able to go out for short periods on internships or practical assignments. Such programmes will also expose them to new technologies that we do not yet have available here. Therefore, as we prepare to catch up with the rest of the world, we need such partnerships under which our students and teachers will be exposed to such facilities; by the time they return, they will be in a position to help us. In summary, it is beneficial for Nigerian universities to partner with their foreign counterparts in ways that will create opportunities for us, and such opportunities are quite vast. I must also say that such partnerships are also beneficial to universities in areas of collaborative research, particularly in aspects of global relevance (e.g. environment). UNILAG currently has relationships with over 30 other universities worldwide on one collaboration or the other.

 How beneficial would the recent Bloomberg partnership with six African universities, including UNILAG, be to Nigeria?

The uniqueness of the training initiative is that it intends to infuse business education and journalism in such a way that products of the trainings will be appropriately armed with financial reporting tools so as to create experts across the continent on business and economic reporting. The experience of the trainings and the partnership will also impact the Nigerian and African educational sector. We live in a world that is increasingly getting integrated or globalised. It is imperative for us as African institutions, to understand what is already taking place in the advanced economies. Let’s be honest about it: there is a big gap between what we have here and what have been done in those places. We are going to benefit from their expertise; we will benefit from the things they have already done in the area of business and economics reporting, which, as you know, is a specialised field. What it involves is integrating business and journalism. Africa and Nigeria will derive immense benefits in the short and long run.

Nigeria tertiary education system has been criticised for offering theoretical knowledge than practical to undergraduates. How can such initiative bridge the gap?

One fact you must know is that tertiary education is founded on theory. Without theory there will be no practical application. We need theories to guide our reasoning and define the framework of our academic pursuit and teaching. Then, the practical aspect is as important. The reality though is that we have been operating under very severe constraints imposed by deficits in infrastructure and this deficit is both in the institutions and the industry. When you talk about practical exposure, you must have the facilities to practise what the theory has provided. That is what has been lacking in some areas. When people criticise, they must take cognisance of this fact. Now, in terms of how this project will help close this gap in the area of, for instance, journalism training and practice, part of it is that it will expose the participants to some recent developments that involve the integration of technology into journalism, especially business and economics reporting. I know that for instance, the participants will have access to the Bloomberg terminal, which will expose them to the Bloomberg system that covers financial markets round the globe. This is a very new innovation in financial journalism. I do not know of any organisation that has this kind of facility. Therefore, it will help our participants not just to know the theoretical aspect of it, but also the practical part of it. By the time they log onto the Bloomberg system, they will be able to know how information related to companies is generated, and how these companies are assessed by journalists. This is one aspect of practical training that the participants will benefit from.

How can such an initiative be replicated in other education sectors to create more jobs for graduates in the country?

One way to get out of the unemployment problem in our country is to change the mindset of our students and graduates: that they could also become employers of labour instead of just going out to look for jobs. First, I believe that there should be some level of entrepreneurship training in the university curriculum, which is already being enforced by the National Universities Commission. Secondly, we should focus on skills acquisition in our programmes. Without skills, people could pass through the universities and still end up without being able to offer any service. You create jobs by deploying the skills and knowledge that you have, and expressing them in the form of a service or product. Today, the students are even better placed to work on their own with the advent of various social media platforms. There are various things graduates can do with the knowledge they acquire. First, they have to know their subjects well. They have to develop themselves even while they are in school. They have to acquire relevant skills. Through this programme, participants will be able to sharpen the skills that they already have. These are mid-career journalists. Writing is not about theory. It’s about the skill that someone has acquired over time. You go to school to broaden your knowledge, but you must have something that you can translate into practical expression in the form of product or service. We must lay emphasis on entrepreneurship across disciplines – whether you are in engineering or in English language or mass communication. Our tertiary institutions should begin to lay emphasis on how students can, after graduation, translate what they have learnt into jobs. As to whether the replication of the Bloomberg initiative in other education sectors can lead to more direct jobs for graduates, I like to state that even if it is possible to replicate and some people get engaged, the quantum of jobs that can be created will be infinitesimal compared to what can be generated through earlier suggested needs for skill acquisition and entrepreneurial development efforts.