CHALLENGES AND INNOVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: REFLECTIONS FROM THE UNIOSUN EXPERIENCE BY PROFE

CHALLENGES AND INNOVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: REFLECTIONS FROM THE UNIOSUN EXPERIENCE BY PROFESSOR SOLA AKINRINADE VICE-CHANCELLOR OSUN STATE UNIVERSITY Presentation at the Workshop on Governance and Quality in Higher Education Management, Abuja, 2 November 2009

Welcome to Osun State University!

Preliminaries… • Protocol & Appreciations • Reflecting on Challenges and Innovation in Higher Education Management in Nigeria and our approach at Osun State University in seeking to tackle/address these challenges • A few words about Osun State University (UNIOSUN) • Established 21 September 2007; • So, we are only two years old and our experience is not much; so don’t expect too much from this presentation!

UNIOSUN was deliberately set up as a six-campus institution with its main campus at Osogbo; there are eight Colleges: • Osogbo Campus: Colleges of • Health Sciences & Science, • Engineering and Technology • Branch campuses at: • Okuku: Management & Social Sciences • & Human Resource Development and • and Lifelong Learning • Ikire: Humanities & Culture • Ifetedo: Law • Ejigbo: Agriculture • Ipetu-Ijesa: Education

Peculiar Challenge… • Thus, the first challenge faced by UNIOSUN is simple: How to set up and manage campuses on multiple sites to attain a respectable level of cost efficiency while keeping quality of delivery high and increase the economic value of the host community. But why six campuses? • Need to serve the six geo-political zones of the state with university education AND promote the catalytic role of education on the economy through establishing the presence of a university in the communities.

Reflections on Systemic Challenges • What are some of the challenges that confront the Higher Education system today? I like to suggest a few… (please note that this list is neither exhaustive nor in any sequence) • Challenge of creating competitive institutions in a globalised world: • In this global village, the products of our institutions have to compete with the graduates of other institutions; • In times past, the graduates of most Nigerian universities particularly the first generation universities could easily hold their heads high anywhere in the world as they received education that compared with the best and were taught by teachers that would hold equivalent positions in any institution in the world; • At the minimum, nationally, graduates of our universities have to compete for the limited vacancies in the public and private sectors of the economy

Challenges… 2. Challenge of providing access without compromising quality: there are limited spaces out there; • By 2012 when the first set of UBE would be ripe to enter the university, probably over 3 million students would be writing the University Matriculation Examination. (figure revised because of the massive drop outs along the way with only about 30% proceeding to Junior Secondary of the 12 million enrolled in primary schools in 1999) • Until the recent increases announced by the NUC, there were less than 200,000 spaces in all Nigerian universities combined, while over 1 million applicants have been writing the University Matriculation Examinations annually for over five years now in a row. • The recent increases only expanded the total space available to about 245,000 – thus, the system can only cater for well under a quarter of applicants. • This is one major root of corruption in the system as both parents and intending students continuously try to compromise the system in order to secure a place…

Challenges… 3. Challenge of competition from other providers and inadequate human resource capacity: • With the recent licensing of 7 new private universities, the total has increased to 106: 27 federal, 35 state and 44 private. • Emergence of private universities with various forms of ownership represents a major challenge to public institutions and to the university system at large; • Increase in number of tertiary institutions has not been matched by a commensurate expansion in the working force for those institutions. As of 2007, the Nigerian university system required at least 8000 additional PhD holders in most disciplines in order to service the then 80 universities.

Challenges… • The human resource challenge is not limited to the teaching staff: there is manifest gross incapacity in the administrative and other non-teaching cadres including technologists and even finance staff; • Other providers are competing for the best talents available both students and staff; while many new institutions are aggressive in their recruitment programmes, truth is when university managers have to compete for staff with the industry, it’s always an unfair competition with the industry almost always winning. 4. Related to the above: challenge of attracting and retaining talents • For any institution to be distinguished, it must be able to attract and retain talents particularly staff; the rating of a university is particularly determined by the number of nationally and internationally acclaimed talents that grace the four walls of its offices and classrooms…

On challenges… 5. Garbage in, garbage out: challenge of poor input from the lower systems • University teachers and Vice-Chancellors are not magicians: the products of our secondary schools particularly the public ones are truly a worrisome group. When only the poorest students, except the truly bright but indigent ones, end up being their only students, the products of public schools can hardly be better than the input – at least when compared with the products of other institutions; • The products of most of the elite private institutions end up as students in overseas institutions – leaving the coast clear for the dregs to occupy. • When employers complain about the products of our universities, they should realise that university teachers are forced to work with inadequate raw materials.

Challenges… 6. Challenge of inadequate funding and reluctance of beneficiaries to share in the cost of providing quality education: • For public universities at least, money can never be enough; public schools are competing with other government priorities for funding; mind you: there is NO UNESCO document that formally prescribes 23% of national budget as minimum for Education; • Reluctance of beneficiaries to share in the cost of providing quality education: the typical Nigerian would pay for anything except the cost of training his child in school – that has to be handled by Government! • Unfortunately, for federal institutions, the Government has never been bold enough to announce a regime of competitive fees for our universities.

Challenges… 8. Challenge of INTERNAL corruption… This has become a pervasive problem in most tertiary institutions in Nigeria today. • Seepages are everywhere: admission processes, examination administration, contract award and administration, bogus claims, fraudulent returns,

Challenges… 9. Bureaucratic challenges and political interference: state-owned institutions have to cope with the challenges of dealing with government processes of getting approvals for expenditures, which many times can be tortuous; • At the same time, most have to deal with the problem of political interference in their administrative processes; Council members looking for contract… • Many are saddled with bloated workforce as a result of the need to meet the demands of political bigwigs in their states including their own Council members. • Delta State House of Assembly versus Delta State University Vice-Chancellor.

Other challenges… • Poor commitment level by operators: teachers, policy makers – this is easily reflected in the reluctance to partake of the food we are offering! (Many staff of federal universities have their children in private institutions!) • Disruptive unionism… • Poor commitment level by students – reflection of level of investment: many times students act as if they are doing the society a favour by getting educated • Challenge of larger societal values: the larger society complicates our work by the kind of values it projects

Our Experience: a few notes • Value orientation and re-orientation for staff and students: we are seeking to create and impart into our staff and students a value system which builds private sector values into a public institution • We have borrowed from the experiences of private institutions in developing our system; we have no staff or student unions, but in return we maintain an open system that permits regular dialogues between management and staff and between management and students. • On assumption of duty every staff is given a copy of Code of Conduct for Staff and Students which spells out dos and don’ts, responsibilities, duties and sanctions for infringements. • *Our Code of Conduct is currently being revised after two years of its operation…

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience • Dealing with human resource capacity shortfall: We realise that capacity is sorely lacking nationally and all institutions are competing for the same scarce resources; so, our approach is to create our own and build those who are available to reach the level in which they can perform to the desired levels; no need to lament… build or rebuild. • Introduction of the Special Doctoral Staff Training Programme, which during the last year has been greatly assisted by the ETF support for staff development; • Regular capacity building for staff through monthly in-house training targeted at developing the capacities of staff already on ground, both teaching and non-teaching; • Sponsorship of all categories of staff at national and international workshops meant to develop their skills and enhance overall capacity.

Lessons from the UNIOSUN experience • Attracting and Retaining Talents by Creating the enabling environment for talents to flourish – If you manage to attract, then, you have to retain • Providing teaching and research facilities • A system of remuneration that compares favourably with the federal system – even if we cannot match what their counterparts in the developed countries of the world earn; • Networking with other institutions nationally and internationally to make available resources and facilitate the development of research partnerships between our staff and their colleagues in other parts of the world; • Rapid assessment of staff, particularly external assessment: VC’s direct involvement in making calls to external examiners and use of conference assessment system; quick payment of honoraria to assessors, etc.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience 4. Dealing with the challenge of expanding access without compromising quality (I): • Filtering of intakes: to counter, as much as possible the problems associated with poor inputs • UNIOSUN two-stage post-UME is more than subject competency testing; it includes an assessment of the total student: communication (oral and written), comportment, knowledge of the world and of the society, etc. • The post-UME process seeks to filter out candidates that, in our best judgment, have tendency towards any of the following: examination malpractice, cultism, hooliganism, poor communication, inability to project positive image of the institution, etc. • We have not always succeeded but we believe that the process had really helped us to filter out quite several that would have become a nuisance to the system.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience 5. Dealing with the challenge of expanding access without compromising quality (II): • Keeping enrolment at a figure that is sustainable and working on a progressive expansion of student base (in our first year, 104,000 applicants put in for the 500 places on offer. We eventually admitted 596; our second year, we admitted about 1,200; this year, our carrying capacity as defined by NUC is 1400 and, as much as possible, we want to stay within the limits) • Given our multi-campus system and the facilities made available, we have the capacity for much larger figures. Indeed, each of our five active campuses can conveniently take 1000, for a total of 5000 but we are guided by our philosophy: “Think big; start small; increase gradually.” • Deployment of technology to teaching including the use of electronic or interactive boards that make great resources available to the teacher online, real time: we believe that is the direction Nigerian universities should be going rather than building mega lecture theatres;

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience 5. Dealing with the challenge of expanding access without compromising quality (II) – cont.: • We have provided internet connectivity in all our campuses and are encouraging our teachers to put more of their teaching materials online; • Capacity for utilisation of the available technological resources is still low but we continue to train and retrain and encourage use. • Establishment of a Quality Assurance Office in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office with the task of providing an enabling environment for quality teaching and monitoring the performance of teachers. The Unit coordinates the Student Assessment of Staff Teaching Quality and makes the results along with the interpretation available to teachers.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience 6. Developing an administrative support system that eliminates bureaucratic inefficiency, lethargy, and waste. • Staff are recruited only into advertised positions; • By September 2009, we had achieved what most state and federal universities found impossible: have more academic than non-academic staff on the payroll; probably the only state-owned institution in this country with more academic than non-teaching staff; • Encouraging multi-tasking on the part of staff: the fact that only a limited number of non-teaching staff, particularly at the junior cadre, were recruited, this has forced many academic and senior administrative staff to take on aspects of the job hitherto considered the exclusive preserve of particularly category of staff.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience • Eliminating bureaucracy – • General administration and normal registry (administrative) support services in branch campuses are conducted from the office of the Provost; • Authority and responsibility for routine administrative procedures are delegated to officers on site to minimise cost and eliminate bureaucratic delay; • Recommendations for appointments, promotions, leave, staff travel, etc are made at respective campuses but processed for approval by the relevant committees and organs of the University at the main campus.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience • The Provost has powers to take executive actions in such matters as staff travel and local leave but he/she reports all such actions to the next meeting of the appropriate committee or organ of the university; • There is great reliance on ICT for communication; intranet e-mail system is being developed for document sharing and general communication; routine intra- and inter-campus memos and mails are forwarded using internal e-mail system; • Upon the full deployment of its internet and intranet network, the University and its campuses will make maximum use of internet based VOIP for communication between campuses;

Development of a central pool for necessary support services that must be established at the branch campuses including secretarial, pottering and physical mail delivery. • To save costs and facilitate effective coordination, physical structures of all the branch campuses are designed such as to have one common entrance and exit points and a central potter’s lodge.

Notes on the UNIOSUN experience 7. Coping with the challenge of funding: adopting a cost sharing approach: • We advocate cost sharing in bearing the burden of providing quality education: thus, the State, Local Governments and Parents all contribute towards meeting the cost of training students at UNIOSUN • How? Students pay ‘realistic’ tuition that encourages the development of commitment to the development of a stable system and encourages parents to develop interest in the running of the institution; • How? All Local Governments in Osun State pay towards the funding of the University on a monthly basis. The revenue so generated is remitted to the University directly without having to beg anybody (Statutory 5% contribution); • The State Government provides the balance of the money required in the University’s annual budget. • University has also set up a Development Office tasked with coordinating the University’s initiative in internal revenue generation

Lessons from the UNIOSUN experience 8. Working with Government to create the enabling environment: • We believe its better to cooperate with Government and its agencies rather than engage in confrontation to get what we want • UNIOSUN is probably the only institution in this country where all the government-nominated members of Council are academics, seasoned academics: overall, 15 Professors in Council and NO politician.

Lessons from the UNIOSUN experience 9. Building alliance and developing a body of stakeholders: • Parents forum = PTA in schools (except that University Management is not involved in the running of the Parents Forum and VC is not Secretary! • Community Relations Unit in our Development Office • Outreach to Local Governments and Legislators at State and national levels • Overall purpose is to assure the sustainable development of the institution

Lessons from the UNIOSUN experience • Partaking in the feast ourselves: the Registrar, the Bursar, and several staff members have their biological children as students at UNIOSUN. Our goal is to develop a university that we would be proud to have our children as students. • Commitment to making a difference: this is probably the greatest key, that despite all odds we may confront, we just want to make a difference and just do a good job!

Concluding remarks • I may not have responded one-to-one to the issues outlined in the request from the convener of this conference, but I guess we all still remember that I pointed out that our institution is just two years old. Our target is to avoid many of the challenges noted as we develop our system. • This is also a learning experience for us… and I’m open to answer your questions…

Merci! • Thank You!

CHALLENGES AND INNOVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: REFLECTIONS FROM THE UNIOSUN EXPERIENCE BY PROFE