globilization and educational development in nigeria which way forward

7/29/2019 Globilization and Educational Development in Nigeria Which Way Forward

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Continental J. Education Research 4 (2): 22 - 28, 2011 ISSN: 2141 - 4181 Wilolud Journals, 2011 http://www.wiloludjournal.com

` Printed in Nigeria

GLOBILIZATION AND EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: WHICH WAY FORWARD?

Alice Ekundayo OlatunjiDepartment of Counselling and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Lead City University, Ibadan

ABSRACTThe concept of globalization is to make the world into a global village; provide enabling environmentfor international cooperation for social development, poverty eradication, create a new world economicorder, promote social integration and ensure equity and respect for human dignity. Thus, a trulyglobalised world economy requires the contribution, cooperation and commitment of a maximum ofpeople, states and institutions. Because the effect of globalization is the same on all the third countriesof the world, however, my limited references shall focus on Africa and Nigeria. In spite of the promise

of the countries of the G8 to assist Africa in the spirit of globalization through the integration of Africainto the world market; debt burden relieve, promotion of agriculture to boost efficiency of localcapacity, political system reform to create a broader spread of civil society participation, stoppage orcurtailment of crises in the continent and motivating African nations to be responsible for thedevelopment of the continent, these are mere rhetoric without corresponding concrete actions. In thiswork, more focus will be on the deficiency of the educational system in Nigeria as one hindrance of theimpact of integrating globalization into the Nigerian system despite all efforts from within and outsidethe continent of Africa.

KEYWORDS: Globalisation, Educational Development

INTRODUCTIONThe topic of Globalization and the attendant challenges for education, politics, economics, culture and morality

in the human society has become a source of major concern for educators across the world. Now whencombined with the reality of Urbanization and Post Modernity, the challenges become even more complex. Yeteducationist cannot run away from confronting the challenges posed by what appears to be a majortransformation in the form of existence and the manner of interaction among human beings.

The revolution in modern communication technology with the emergence of the computer and the internet,which have conquered space and reduced the world to a global village, the internationalization of the economyand industry, by which a few countries are growing ever more affluent, while the fortunes of the majority ofpeoples are ever worsening.

TOWARDS IMPROVING THE STATUS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN NIGERIAThe term education is quite elusive and very difficult to pin down to a single definition. This is becausenumerous authorities in different fields define education as it appeals to them and their background. In any caseeducation is what helps us to acquire suitable appreciation of our cultural heritage and to live a fully moresatisfying life. This includes the acquisition of desirable knowledge, skill, habit, values for productive living inthe society. It equips the member of any human group with the capabilities of personal survival in contributingto other group survival globally. ( Alade, 2006). The forgoing explains that the end purposes of educationinclude the cognitive development, the development of deeper intellectual skills and character trainingconcerned with the appreciations, feelings and values of those educated.

It is also a crystal clear that education reverse to both the process by which we acquire knowledge, skill, habitand values as well as the result of the process that involves both learning and teaching. So no one would doubtthe value of being educated in any community. A clear testimony to this statement is in the adage, if you planfor one year, plant rice; if you plan for ten years plant trees; if you plan for hundred years, educate a person.Yes indeed the best and long last lasting gift any one can offer to someone or any community in this regards isgood education.


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Alice Ekundayo Olatunji: Continental J. Education Research 4 (2): 22 - 28, 2011

a. Relevance of curriculum content an choice: (Okebukola, 2003) revealed that while the content of theminimum standard course descriptions laid down by the Nigerians universities commission (NUC) forNigerians universities agreed well with course content of universities in most developed nations, a gap

still exist in implementation instead of implementing the NUC minimum standard, most of the courseoffered in Nigeria which were initially meant to develop people for bureaucratic functions in thesociety, are not well taught since in this age of globalization, some lecturers merely dictates note theycopied as student without regular up-dating.

b. Quality of teaching and learning: the increased enrolment in Nigeria universities in face of dwindlingresources into the university system also affect graduate out-put. Consequently there were incessantstrike actions by academics, nonacademic staff and university students between these periods. Thus,the time available for teaching and learning became disturbingly reduced; university teachers becameunmotivated to teach, and student became unmotivated to learn; classrooms and laboratories becamenon conducive for educational activities; and teaching content became alarming reduced within thetime available. With this trend compounding itself in 1990s, universities in Nigeria, increasinglycontinue to manufacture half-baked graduate from heavily congested and obsolete factories contrary to

what it was in the earlier stage; of university education in Nigeria, today, general commitment toteaching and learning (to scholarship)has become extremely very low.

c. Administrative and financial autonomy: the increase in the number of capacity and poor funding madethe university to consistently demand for administrative and financial autonomy, with the hope that thiswill enable the universities to diagnose problems facing the system and be able to find a lasting durablesolution. Most countries embrace this idea of autonomy, but we need more scientific information foreffective implementation of this policy in Nigeria to reduce pressures standardization exerted by thenational universities commission (NUC) and other buffer other bodies by government.

d. Campus crises, militancy and conflict management; as unionism (freedom of association) is afundamental right of every worker, yet unionized staff militancy over salaries issues has been a majordestabilizing factor within the system in Nigeria. In similar vein, lot of disruption has been witnessed

through students violence and campus violent cult crises. University is therefore facing the problem ofhow to demilitarize our campuses.

e. Research and innovation: while funding of scientific research can be obtained through different privateand public sources, government, especially in Nigeria, play a dominant role in funding universityresearch which private sectors ignores for lack of commercial values. Whereas grant to universities areon the increase else-where in the world, the flow of such funds has been impeded by certain proceduralproblems in Nigeria. While government was making apparent effort to fund universities research, highinflation rate in this period mopped up inadequate funds for university research

f. Financing: Nigerian government have not been able to provide the financial resources necessary tomaintain educational quality in the midst of enrolment expansion. By the end of the 1990s university

expenditure per student in Nigeria had fallen to $360. In response the government announced itsdecision in July 2000 to increase funding to $970 per student and to encourage universities to generatean additional 10% of their recurrent budget from income producing activities. Apart from the abovethere are other challenges like the problem of recruiting the right and qualified teaching staff, retainingand rewarding the caliber of academic staff needed to sustain and improve both teaching and research,the problem of maintaining the infrastructure for research and teaching and the problem of making surethat the investment in university education is used to the best effect (Nwana, 2000).

Although there has been political context that degraded the quality of higher education in Nigeria through the90s the government; inability to adequately fund higher education for current operations and address the deficitresulting from the deferred maintenance result is serious barriers to measurable improvement which accordingto Okebukola (2003) can be summarized as

a. Inadequate facilities to support education excellenceb. The impoverishment Nigerias primary and secondary education system which has resulted in manyundergraduate arriving at the university without basic technical writing and scientific skills needed for

undergraduate study


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c. State control of the university system that has dictated classification of higher education withoutallowing for filtering of learners coming into the university system, setting faculty wages at level thatwill attract qualified instructors and researchers, and restructuring to attract new resources through

tuition and fees

Higher education, though could be very important in assisting people in gaining employment there are stillremain palpable barriers to this effect in the Nigeria context.

The socio-economy connection, whilst always present remains especially critical in a quickly globalizingeconomic market in which quality control and production according to strict specification can be crucial indeed.How can this barrier be removed and improve higher education in its totality in Nigeria?

First of all, it is very important for the Nigerian government to make significant progress in improving thequality and efficiency of secondary education prior to focus on the higher education section. Or still goodenough, it could be pursued paris passu. Excellent examples of the socio economic connection of basiceducation reside in Asia with the speedy use of opportunities of global market for the reduction of poverty. In

Japan the fundamental code of education issued in 1872, expressed commitment to make sure that there must beno community with an illiterate family or a family with an illiterate person. Thus with the bridging ofeducation barriers, began Japans remarkable history of rapid socio-economic growth. By 1910 Japan wasalmost fully literate at least for the young and by 1913, Japan was publishing more books and twice more booksthan Britain and United States of America respectively, even though she was still very much poorer (Wasser,2001).the concentration on education determined to a large extent, the nature and speed of Japans economicand social progress. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other Asian economies followed similar routes later inthe second half of the 20th century, with their visions firmly fixed on general expansion of education. Nigeriancan emulate the trend of the Asian educational development to aspire to greater heights in the benefit of highereducation. Nigerians can surely learn from history and thereafter remain committed, and be firmly focused forthe times ahead,

THE CASE OF A WORLD- CLASS UNIVERSITY IN NIGERIA

The degrading state of education in Nigeria is becoming so alarming, which has made Nigeria universities not tobe ranked among the first 5,000 universities in the world and among the first 40 in African. One could alsoobserve that with the trend of globalization as a trend that is engulfing the whole world and which has becomepanacea to many world problems, Nigeria needs a world class university system, to accelerate her developmentand make her relevant in the new modernity and globalized ranking. One could reason therefore

That an international competitive educational system is the first step in building an economy that will bringhome the dividend of globalization to Nigeria, which other developing economies through-out the world havebeen enjoying. Thus there is the need for a genuine dialog in terms of educational reform that will provideNigerians with the skills needed to compete internationally. This reform should raise the level of knowledgecapital to support an international society that has shed its colonial ties to agriculture and a sustenance socialorganization to sophisticated manufacturing and knowledge industries. World class university is also necessaryto incubate and support the development of local indigenous business. In-spite of Nigerias eroded higher

education system, there is evidence of innovations and regional success. Although Nigeria is blessed withabundant natural resources and creativity, too many false start and failed effort to improve education and entryinto the race for globalization will put Nigerian society at long-term disadvantages relative to other developingeconomies such as China and India.

HIGHER EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORKUniversities all over the world have the proud record of knowledge sharing that dates back to 100s of years. Inthis respect, the academic world was a global phenomenon before the word globalization was coined. Theglobal market place and the information technology (IT) revolution that fuels it simply accelerate a processalready well under way. IT facilitates a free flow of research and expertise, making the best informationsimultaneously available in Port Elizabeth of Samoa, Sokoto of Nigeria and Los Angeles of United State ofAmerica. In a view of this constant and continuing development in IT and new knowledge. A global electroniclink server should be established in each university, solely for campus usage. The main aim of these electronic

connections should be for the purpose of networking, collaborative research, studies and fellowship amongststudent, graduates and their teachers all within tie perimeters of their offices, common rooms or lounge. Such


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internet connectivity is now fully operational in a few of universities e.g. Usman Danfodio university, Sokoto,Ife and Lagos. This should be extended in more details to all the universities in the country. Apart fromknowledge transfer, learning and training, such network should get the student more focused academically and

having less time for the deviant-behavior such as cultism.

Therefore in order to be a full participant in the already unavoidable globalization, every effort should continueto be made to improve the status of higher education in Nigeria, so as to be able to admit and retain the serviceof the talented and ambitious young men and women teaching in the system. The scope of higher education,particularly, university education should also be expanded to include a wide-spread use of multimediatechnology in teaching. It has been observed that a lot of university teachers that teach today in Nigeria do notknow anything about computer. How would a teacher then teach and be professionally functional in this age ofglobalization when the world at large has become a global village if the teacher is not well equipped with theknowledge of ICT what is the teacher going to teach? How is he going to teach it? More-so, he is expected toteach current research knowledge, how is he going to teach it when he /she is ICT illiterate?

STRATEGIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS TOWARDS BUILDING WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY IN

NIGERIA (WAY FORWARD)Nigeria needs to start with good, genuine and targeted policy to reform higher education. Reforms that willpromote university autonomy, that will give the university council the responsibility for institutionalgovernance, the appointment of key officers restricting the power of the national universities commission andallowing university to set admission criteria, select students, develop curricular and restore grant funding arevery imperative.

To ensure efficient higher education system that would deliver an effective educational service, more strategicand symbiotic plans/objectives are considered central and must be diligently pursued. This nine point strategywould enable the nation to achieve the over-all goal of transforming the higher education sector. These are to;

a. Provide increased access to higher education and to produce well equipped graduateb. Provide entrepreneurship curriculum opportunities for student across all disciplines in Nigeria higher

education

c. Promote equity of access and to redress pass inequalities by ensuring that student and staff profileprogressively reflect the demographic realities of the Nigerian society

d. Build new institutional and organizational identities through local, regional and internationalcollaboration between different institutions

e. Build high level research and teaching capacities to address research and knowledge needsf. Creates and facilitate global information networking within each campus and/or adjoining campusesg. Promote and sustain self-sufficient in funding via the fostering of a triple helix of University-Industry

Government relations. The strategy would create more collateral partnerships and linkages with themiddle of the helical structure as important stakeholders. That is industries, business and communitieswho benefit immensely from the university education. The universities should also derives mutualbenefit from them, which could be inclusive of funding of research relevant to their practices orspecialties

h. Promote peace and security in the campus so as to ensure an enabling education friendly environmentfor easy teaching and learning

i. Promote and active and vibrant parent-teachers association (PTA)These strategic points, if successfully adopted, will be able to assist-in the line of improved discipline, excellentcultural stability, awareness of negative effect of cultism and participatory funding. Why shouldnt anexemplary PTA for example, support of foot a good research proposal or finance a post graduate scholarship?All these points are sine qua non for boosting excellence in teaching and research in the universities. Theuniversities themselves should plan to provide additional funding to promote excellent in teaching, to introducenew national professional standards for teaching and to provide better information on teaching standards to helpstudent choice and drive up the quality of education. It is a fact that there is a pandemic problem of under-funding in all our universities; however, this should not negate our drive to improve the quality of highereducation in Nigeria.

Since government is burdened by numerous national problems, the universities should be less fully dependenton the government. Each higher institution can pursue self-funding by: promoting partnership and linkages with


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all stakeholder-locally, regionally and internationally; ensuring the provision of functional advisory, extensionand consultancy services on issues that are relevant to the socio-economic advancement of the university and thenation; and founding of a government initiated body to be known as higher education funding of Nigeria

(HEFON). The creation HEFON should be in partnership with oil industries and other corporate bodies. Thefunding from such a body should aim to assist and build on linkages and to develop a more strategic and non-prescriptive approach to the use of funds.

The success of such a program had been documented after its first year of operation in the June 2003 report ofthe Brazilian embassy has put forward by Mondal (2006). These reports confirm that the United Kingdom (UK)and Brazilian academics benefited immensely from the opportunities of working more closely in internationalpartnerships and linkages and had planned further activities for the future. The Brazilians universities were partof a larger program of nine priority research areas in the state of Rio de Janeiro which itself was part of a widerfederal scheme. Two of these three were in engineering-related fields with strong links to the oil and gasindustry in Rio, in particular, with the Brazilian oil company called petrol bras. These Brazilian researchprograms, in partnerships with consortia of UK universities focused on important and related research areassuch as industrial catalysis corrosion protection (both primarily geared towards the oil and gas industry) and

photo pharmaceuticals.

So why cant a university or some universities in Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company(NNPC) or Shell Petroleum take a cue from this excellent example? Any of our university can work out afeasible ideology or program which we have designated as HEROIC initiative meaning, that is, HigherEducation Reach Out to industries and community. Each Nigerians should pledge to introduce Centers ofExcellent to celebrate excellent practices in teaching and research.

In boosting academic excellent in teaching and research in higher education in Nigeria, very high qualityresearch should be well funded whilst keeping strictly to the saving gown for town. The result of the researchand teaching, its discoveries and new knowledge should be used for the improvement of town or community.Higher education effort should cover both basic and applied research, which should be responsive to the feltneeds and expectation of Nigeria as nation.

CONCLUSIONThe Nigeria of 21st century is facing a lot of problems with regards to national development. The present state ofour country is such that there is economic depression, infrastructural decades and social disintegration. Thedesire of Nigerians is that this country must wake up and move forward. The required ingredient (human andnatural resources) to move the country forward are there in abundance, university education is one of thevehicles needed to help Nigeria move forward. University education should give graduate both personal andintellectual fulfillment. The contributions of the university education to national development in the 21st centuryare far reaching and so, we cannot afford the risk of decline.

For the universities to successfully face the challenges confronting them and make meaningful contributions toour national development, the country need education-friendly government, a civil society and public sector thatis ready and willing to invest in university education and give recognition to those who have chosen the path of

knowledge industry. It can therefore be concluded that the most sustainable way of meeting national objectivesfor international integration and prosperity is to invest in Nigerians through higher education and the beststarting point is genuine reform of the underpinning policy system constraining the universities.

REFRENCESAdebayo. A.G.(2OO5). Revisiting the Academic Tradition. university of Ibadan 28th Post Graduate SchoolInterdisciplinary Research Discourse

Alade I.A.(2006). Evaluation of technical education curriculum in college of education in southwestern Nigeria.Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Teacher Education. University of Ibadan.

Nigeria (2004). National policy on education. Abuja Government Printing Press

Nwana, O.C (2000). Aberrations in Nigerian education systems. In the state of education in Nigeria, UNESCO.Abuja office Nigeria.


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Mondal S.R (2006). Cultural globalization and globalization of culture.

Okebukola P (2000). Trend in tertiary education in the state of education in Nigeria. UNESCO, Abuja office,

Nigeria.

Okebukola P (2003). Issues of funding university education in Nigeria. Abuja NUC.

Ramon-Yusuf S. (2003). The role of national universities commission in Nigeria university. Abuja NUC.

Received for Publication: 15/08/2011Accepted for Publication: 22/10/2011

globilization and educational development in nigeria which way forward

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