REJOINDER TO "ECONOMICS OF FREE EDUCATION"

A response to the perspectives put forward by my good friend and brother, Lanre Asiwaju in his note titled "Economics of Free University Education" which you can read via this link    

https://eniiyi.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/economics-of-free-university-education/

First I must clearly emphasize that I agree with you that university education is not for all, it should only be for those who deserve it, those who have demonstrated they have the mental capacity and capability to go through what the university system offers. Today, personal ability and strength have both been forsaken and there is a mad rush for university education, this rush is not borne out of genuine interest in seeking knowledge, but because we live in a country where there is no decent life for you, if you don’t have a degree, so university education to most seeking it in Nigeria today is just a means to an end – and that end is just to put food on the table, because if you don’t have a degree, you cannot earn something tangible to even support your living or live a decent life. This has to do with the problem of distribution of wealth and also bridging the wide gap between the rich and the poor.

The advanced countries have perfected a system where everybody irrespective of whether you have a degree or not have access to good and a quality life - food, housing and shelter, the basic needs of man are available and quite affordable for all. An average worker in Germany using the German minimum wage as a basis earns between €1,300 to €1,500/month before tax (based on my own assumptions predicated on a minimum wage of €8.5/hour and how the number of days worked): Also in the United Kingdom the minimum wage is about €1,301.01, this category of workers are basically the low-skilled workers, and it is also important to note that workers with degrees earn pretty much and normally the start-up salary for example in Germany is between €33,000 to €46,000 per annum, some category of skilled workers earn pretty much than this. The economics of it all is that, all categories of workers can afford to pay their bills, live a decent life, access basic health-care services, and those who are vulnerable still get some form of social support from the government. The system is structured in such a way that at the end of the year, most of these workers can even afford the luxury of travelling to other countries during their holiday after about 10-11 months of work. This is another broad topic for another day.

PERCENTAGE OF JOBHOLDERS HOLDINGHAUPTSCHULABSCHLUSS, REALSCHULABSCHLUSS OR ABITUR IN GERMANY[11] 1970 1982 1991 2000 Hauptschulabschluss 87,7 % 79,3 % 66,5 % 54,9 % Realschulabschluss 10,9 % 17,7 % 27 % 34,1 % Abitur 1,4 % 3 % 6,5 % 11 %

Source: Wikipedia

Note: The Abitur is the Certificate that qualifies students for study in the University in Germany, while students with the other Certificates normally proceed to Vocational and Technical Training (Ausbildung). So this gives an insight into the percentage of Jobholders in Germany that have a University degree. Reports show as at 2013, there had been a slight increase in the number of University enrollment compared to the early 2000s

So in societies like that, university education is more of interest, choice and it is also ability-dependent, but in our own country, the most important reason why the demand for university education is so high is, get a degree to  get out of poverty. Hence, our system will continue to take the blame for the mad rush for a degree at the expense of other training such as vocational and technical education. We are already paying the cost already, as we barely have auto-mechanics, plumbers, vulcanisers, barbers, panel-beaters, painters, electricians and others on our streets. All of us are holed-up within the four walls of a university classroom, seeking a degree in other to live a good life. I also agree with you on your recommendations that emphasises should be placed on developing our vocational and technical education, and also making them competitive. Also, our economic policies must be reshaped such that one of the foci will be on re-distributing and re-allocation of wealth, in order to bridge the wide gap between the rich and the poor. If my 24 years old Spanish friend who works as an Hotel attendant is able to save up during 8-10months of work to go on a 2-months holidays in foreign countries at the end of the working year, then we should also devise a system where all workers, skilled or unskilled, are able to at least get a good and decent life.

When we have that kind of system that dignifies life, and all workers get appropriate rewards for their work- rewards that are enough to guarantee a happy and decent life. Then, emphasises on university degree will be greatly reduced; then a young boy of 17, after finishing his Secondary School Education will happily pursue his dream of becoming a painter, or a carpenter, or a shoe-maker and not having to be afraid he will not make enough money to sustain his living. Such young people will know they are secured and they have a system to help them out even if they run into problems in the course of their work. Again, emphasis should be laid on increasing the standard and improving the model of teaching in our Primary and Secondary Schools, so that anybody who has the Senior Secondary Certificate can be deemed a “literate”. All these will greatly benefit our system and help diversify and increase the complexity of our Production economy as we move from an oil and gas and service dependent economy to a manufacturing or a production-based one.

I agree with you again that our universities are longing for more funds in order to keep up with organisational, teaching and research demands. As it stands today, Nigerian universities remain largely uncompetitive on the African continent, come to talk of being competitive on the world scene. I must say that inadequate funding is one reason why we continue to lag behind, and students do have a big role to play by contributing more in order to get a more qualitative education, but we should not totally transfer the cost of running the universities on students who are already battling the other socio-economic problems the country is throwing at them.

ranking	World Rank	University	Det.	Country	Presence Rank*	Impact Rank*	Openness Rank*	Excellence Rank*
1	350	University of Cape Town			947	521	540	267
2	358	Cairo University			800	142	1361	633
3	439	Stellenbosch University			487	994	199	454
4	444	University of Pretoria			336	986	117	608
5	580	University of the Witwatersrand			1685	1230	359	414
6	752	University of Kwazulu Natal			1655	1221	1320	559
7	789	University of the Western Cape			1076	935	932	1239
8	904	American University in Cairo			1410	544	1138	2214
9	907	University of Nairobi			1109	2225	44	1403
10	911	Mansoura University			1136	853	2944	1047
19	1655	Obafemi Awolowo University			1392	1644	3988	2340
20	1729	Zagazig University			2826	3826	1881	1377
21	1826	University of Ghana			3792	3944	1690	1455
22	1983	Kenyatta University			993	5874	299	2484
23	1987	University of the Free State			2385	4507	2856	1342
24	2070	University of Khartoum			97	5341	3012	2101
25	2075	Covenant University Ota			3631	3096	955	2993
26	2140	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University			3972	3717	3022	1766
27	2195	Assiut University			3404	5911	2068	1283
28	2256	Université Constantine 1 (Ex Université Mentouri)			1986	6248	1014	2101
29	2297	Cape Peninsula University of Technology			3098	5049	1362	2340
30	2306	Université Kasdi Merbah Ouargla			2628	3453	685	3842

Source: http://www.webometrics.info/en/Africa: 

The two Nigerian universities on the list are highlighted in red

WHY I WILL DISAGREE WITH YOUR SUGGESTION

Like you know already, I share a kind of different view with you on how much Nigeria students should pay for university education, I will continue to starkly disagree with you on your insistence on the need for tuition fee to  be significantly increased to something in the region of N1,000,000 (€4900/$5,600). I find it really difficult to agree to such proposition in a country where our minimum wage is a meagre $107, a country where we don’t have financial support schemes by the government for students, a new tuition regime like you propose will most definitely make university education unaffordable to a lot of students who deserve it, just because their parents will never be able to send them to school because of the high cost. Again let me restate clearly here, that I am not an advocate of free university education, I have never advocated for such and I am not sure I am going to do such in the nearest future, at least with the present economic realities and a declining government revenue, but I will also not support a kind of ridiculous tuition regime which at the end of the day denies millions of students university education; students who deserve it and are highly qualified for a place in the university. Perhaps, we must work out a kind of average that families will still be able raise for their kids if they qualify for university education and this average is not in any way near what you proposed.

WHAT SHOULD OUR UNIVERSITIES DO?

As it stands today, across all critical sectors in Nigeria, underfunding is a big problem, from our educational sector to the health sector down to infrastructural development; our country has not been able to make enough money to develop these critical sectors which will create a lasting impact on our lives and our national outlook. I recognise students have a role to play in developing our universities by bearing some of the financial burdens of running our universities, at the same time; the universities should look inward to generate more funds. Business and Industries too have to come to the aid of our universities by financing some of the research and infrastructural projects our universities embark on, also the universities should continue to seek partnership with other universities and industries abroad. The Alumni Associations should not just sit there and collect Alumni fees from graduates of these universities; rather they should seek greater roles in helping source for funds through their contacts for their respective universities. The universities themselves have massive abundance of business potentials, from vast area of land which can be put into a profitable agricultural production to setting up of other production ventures which can all generate funds to support the running of these institutions. Government must also increase commitments to education by encouraging the universities, increase funding and put in place proper policies and sound frameworks which will open up our universities to external cooperation, partnership and funding.

I have a detailed understanding that there is a limit to which a government like ours can fund universities, especially at a time we are beginning to witness a very significant drop in oil price, perhaps reality will now dawn on us that Nigeria is not a rich country, we are only a country that has the potential to be rich if all our potentials (resources both human and natural) are properly harnessed and explored. I already captured my perspective on this in an article i wrote last year titled “Corruption and Visionary Leadership: Which is Nigeria’s Biggest Problem http://olarewajuolaniyi.blogspot.de/2013/11/corruption-and-visionary-leadership.html”.

So I hope you do understand my standpoint, you already drew up a comparison with the German free tuition policy, which you and I both know Nigeria is very far from. Even in Germany at the moment, there is beginning to be a crack and I hope the German government will be able to sustain the free tuition policy for another decade. Some universities here in Germany are already crying out that they lack sufficient funding to finance their activities and position them to favourably compete with the

       
"The United States spends nearly twice as much per student as Germany does.

          Two-thirds of American universities' revenues come from private sources, compare

         with just 15% in Germany. The Federal Government  (German) is pumping in money

         through programmes like the “excellence initiative”,which promotes mainly research

         at a few select universities. But it so far has done little to improve teaching, which

         is what students tend to care about. Meanwhile States are cutting basic financing,

               notes Margret Wintermantel, head of the German  Rectors' Conference…….”

                                                                                   The Economist, 30th June, 2011 Berlin

first fifty universities in the world. Next Thursday (11/12/14), students in my university will go on a demonstration to demand more funding for the university from the Schleswig-Holstein government. I am pretty sure the response they will get from the government on Thursday will be, there is little the state can do, because all over the world, government all run on a tight budget. I hope the Federal Government will come in by giving more subventions to a state like Schleswig-Holstein for the running of the universities.

On the other hand, we have seen more public outcries in countries like the UK and the US where students are paying back students loans all through the productive part of their lives, and over-exorbitant tuition policies in these two countries are beginning to take toll on their public lives. I hope these advanced countries will one day learn to reduce their bogus military spending to supplement other sectors like the educational sector so as to ease the students of some tuition fee burdens. Whether there are still some cracks in the German free Tuition policy today or not, the system is a to a considerable extent a success and if the government continues to show more commitment to this, the policy will no doubt last for decades if not forever.

It wasn’t so long ago that many viewed Germany’s economic model as outdated and the country as the “the sick man of Europe”. These days, however even the Americans have come to praise parts of  it.Though the still doubt whether they would be able...... or willing.....  to adopt it wholesale.                                  
                                                                                            http://www.spiegel.de/

This is more evident these days as more and more American and British students continue to troop to Germany for their Masters degree. In the last one year, I have met a couple of them who left their country for Germany to escape the very expensive tuition fees in their countries. They are pretty happy because they don’t have to bother about repaying student loans at the end of their studies. Recent statistics show in the US, $1.2trillion is owed by students, as students’ debt.

Even if repaying the student loan is a big problem for most of these students in the said countries, the good thing is, they are still able to get the loan and see themselves pretty comfortably through school, they still have access to students jobs, they get some other forms of scholarships and grants during their studies. How will this kind of high tuition regime you proposing work in a country like ours, where our graduates still roam the streets with no hope of getting a job, come to talk of students getting student-jobs to finance their studies. As at today, we don’t have any a scholarship scheme to help indigent and poor students through school, so how will students from families that cannot afford a tuition fee of #1,000,000 financed themselves through school? It may also interest you to note that 65% of students in Nigeria will fall into this category. So how will you manage that?

I honestly desire the best for my country and it will do us all proud to see Nigerian universities take the top spots in Africa, but we should also not be blinded to the realities of our countries. I don’t think there is any good in astronomically raising tuition fees in our universities with the aim of generating more fund for the universities and at the end of the day, we record just 25% enrollment rate. At the end of the day, the policy will defeat itself, ruin the system and take us some steps backward. We must also learn not to push the people faster than they want to move.

God bless you bro and God bless Nigeria...

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Olarewaju Olaniyi Precious