3rd September, 2013
By Ademola Adegbamigbe
Any country that wants to be great technologically and economically cannot afford to joke with university education. The way the Goodluck Jonathan administration is handling the conflict between government and university lecturers shows that Nigeria, in its quest for development, engages in the dance of the penguin–one step forward, two backward.
As things stand now, the negotiation between university lecturers and federal government representatives, led by Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State, ended in a deadlock, a situation that shows that this gridlock will, for a long time, continue. The government claimed that it made an offer of N30 billion to assist the various councils of Nigerian universities to be able to pay their earned allowances and N100 billion for projects. ASUU waved off the N100 billion issue as mere propaganda and that government offered N30 billion without a concrete commitment on when the balance would be paid. Given that the FG has been a serial breaker of promises it made to it since 1999, ASUU believes that it is a matter of once ambushed, thrice wary! All right-thinking Nigerian must be worried the way university education is being treated in the country. It is not enough to mouth the mantra of development while universities, which should be centres of research, are left to rot.
W.W. Rostow, an American economist, government official and one of the key thinkers in 20th century development studies, postulated five stages of economic development for a country that wants to advance. Traditional society is the first. This, as Rostow put it, is characterised by a subsistent, agriculture-based economy that makes use of intensive labour and has a “population that does not have a scientific perspective on the world and technology”.
Rostow’s second stage is precondition to take off. This is when a country begins to develop manufacturing and play an active role in the comity of nations. The take-off stage is, as Rostow put it, characterised by intensive growth by way of industrialisation, a development that gives rise to organised workers’ unions and other institutions around industries. Europe experienced this during the industrial revolution.
Drive to maturity is the fourth level and the period is longer. Here, standard of living of citizens rises and, as the scholar put it, “use of technology increases and the national economy grows and diversifies.” The last stage is what he calls age of mass consumption. That is when a country’s economy flourishes “in a capitalist system, characterised by mass production and consumerism”. While the US, Britain, France, Germany and other developed nations are in this stage, Nigeria, you dear reader will agree with me, has no seat. At best, we are struggling among stages one and four.
Let us base our analysis on stage four where the use of technology increases and the national economy grows and diversifies. If Nigeria wants to fully develop along this line, it cannot continue to play with universities or centres of learning. This is where theories are waxed, where scientific breakthroughs take place after serious research efforts, which are made possible by serene environments, supports from government and big business. When theories develop on university campuses, they translate to scientific and technological developments that drive industry outside–a marriage of the town and the gown.
Beginning from ancient times, when universities had not started as we know today, rulers did not play with deep knowledge. That was why people like Plato and Aristotle could sit down, just think and chart paths for human progress. Philosophers then (they combined science and the arts) were supported by the kings. At a point, Philip II of Macedon sent his son, Alexander the Great, to learn at the feet of Aristotle. Philosophers were not left to die hungry.
Let us make a beeline to the United States and cite examples of universities that stand for certain areas of knowledge. Johns Hopkins University, based in Baltimore, Maryland, which was established on 22 January 1876, is popular for its research and breakthroughs in the field of Medicine. There is also Harvard University, which is noted for its specialisation in matters of government and management. This oldest institution of higher learning in the US was established in 1636 by the vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was named after John Harvard, a rich clergyman who, upon his death, left his library and £780 for the institution. No wonder now, many Nigerians who spend only three months there, will not mention any other university they attended on their CVs, apart from Harvard!
If Harvard and Johns Hopkins are for management and medicine in that order, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded in 1876, according to Wikipedia, “in response to the increasing industrialisation of the United States”. It uses applied technology to help the American industry.
Then, let us make a dash to Europe where the University of Cambridge produced Isaac Newton, a mathematician and physicist who was the father of laws of motion and universal gravitation. It was founded by a charter in 1231 from King Henry III of England. There is also the University of Oxford, a research institution founded circa 1096 and the second oldest in the world. When a country combines Cambridge with Oxford (Oxbridge), it cannot but be great.
In essence, my argument is that a country that wants to develop does not treat universities with lack of seriousness. It does so at its own peril. A nation does not truly develop, based on imported technology or science. It does by looking within.
It is not that Nigerian universities had not, in the past, lived up to its billing. But over time, successive governments neglected university infrastructure, impoverished the lecturers and scattered them into the four winds. A country does not develop this way. Therefore, President Jonathan should personally intervene in the matter so that lecturers can go back to work, and students back to class.