Why faith-based varsities’ fees are high —Ajayi Crowther University VC

Why faith-based varsities’ fees are high —Ajayi Crowther University VC

Rt. Revd Professor Dapo Asaju is the Vice Chancellor and Bishop Theologian, Samuel Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo. He shares with LAOLU HAROLDS his vision for the 10-year-old institution, as well as his perspective on some other issues in the Nigerian education sector. Excerpts

A lot has been said about the apparent disconnect between what is taught in our tertiary institutions and what is required of graduates in the work place. Employers of labour appear to prefer graduates of foreign institutions or retrain the Nigerian graduates. Where do you locate this problem and what solutions do you proffer?

Fundamentally, we have eroded the appreciation of value for education. We need to understand that basis. A professor walks along the street, nobody knows him; he retires, he has no car or house of his own; but a small boy who plays nothing but football all over the place finds his way to Europe and is being paid, in one week, what a professor will earn in five years! Our values have changed; entertainment and sports have taken over. People have dehumanised those who are supposed to teach and inculcate the standard you are expecting. But it’s not true that the quality of education here is not marketable. The quality of education here is comparable to anywhere in the world; what is missing is the resources. A mechanic is useless on the road beside a broken down car if he has no tools. Yes, we lack tools; but that does not make us incompetent. All we need to do is to refocus on education; provide the enabling environment. What you don’t have, you can’t give.

These days, there are calls for universities to specialise. What area of knowledge would Ajayi Crowther University like to be known for?

I do not agree that we should over-specialise. There are so many universities here in this country, and there is no need to call on any one to specialise, for two reasons: one, we already have specialised universities. We have universities of technology, universities of agriculture, and universities of petroleum. Those ones are specialised enough. A university must be free to provide knowledge to everyone that seeks knowledge. To be an educated man is to know a little bit about everything. Let the faculties and departments that are in place do their jobs very well. We may over-specialise and a fool may rule the country and ruin everything. All these new fads from overseas must not be brought in here. I want to stand for excellence in every area of endeavour. 

Could you give us a peek into the current accreditation status of this university?

All our programmes have earned full accreditation. The newest programme is the Faculty of Law, and that one has just received a visit by the Council of Legal Education. That visit was for facility resource assessment, so that they can approve us to start a Law faculty. All other programmes have been accredited. Accreditation lasts for a particular period; after five years you have to bring the NUC back to re-accredit; to look at the situation whether things have improved or deteriorated. And by next one month, we are expecting a re-accreditation of three programmes: Economics, Business Administration and Mass Communications.

As a professor in the system, are you bothered that there seems to be a paucity of outstanding research breakthroughs from our universities? 

Academics is a funny discipline. Unless you advertise inventions and publicise research outputs, you may not be able to know what people are doing. But within the means and resources that are available to them, Nigerian professors are doing a lot. We don’t have up-to-date equipment, but people are working. One thing about research in this country is that 98 per cent of researches done in Nigeria end up on the shelves of the departments where those researches are domiciled. The job of the researcher is done when he completes the research. 

What is the way out?

The way out is for us to expose our researchers to better facilities, better equipment and more current journals. Two, certain amount of money should be dedicated to research. Let prizes be given to those who are able to make inventions; who are able to discover important things for society. Let government have a centre where they will collate and harness all the projects and theses that have been produced by every educational institution, decipher them and extract those things that are important and begin to formulate policies that will be good for the people. Then we should have a unit where every thesis is published and sold in the bookshops. People will then be able to learn from what has been done. 

Faith-based universities in Nigeria today all run the on-campus students’ accommodation model. Is there a particular reason for this?

It’s because we have seen a missing link in education provision which is not usually provided for in secular universities. I told a story when I was addressing the new matriculants about a particular professor at Oxford University who was in Senate when the result of graduating students were being presented. The best student that year at Oxford University had a First Class in Nuclear Physics – the best they had produced in many years. Everybody clapped, and they were about to pronounce him a graduate when the professor raised his hand and said ‘no, he can’t go’. They said why, the boy has passed, he is the best? (The professor) said “show me the certificate of this university; what does it say? It says ‘This candidate, having been found worthy in learning and character, is hereby awarded this degree…’ I know this boy; he is very irresponsible, very proud, and discourteous. He has excelled in learning, but as far as character is concerned, no.” 
Proper education is a combination of learning (50 per cent), character/integrity (50 per cent). That is why our motto here is ‘Scientia probitia’; it is knowledge and integrity. In faith-based universities, we want to remember that education was brought first and foremost by the churches. We have to recover that heritage. In the days of old, discipline was very much emphasized. People worshipped together; they read their Bibles; they were responsible citizens. Things are not the same now because we have allowed liberty and secularism from the West to take that away from us. So, in faith-based universities, for us to be able to form students who will go back again to be disciplined, cultured and shut out the world and concentrate on their studies and to really have the fear of God in addition to their knowledge, they have to be residential. It is when you do that that you can call them to worship together. That is the cutting edge over and above the state universities where there is so much unbridled liberty. 

The most repeated criticism of faith-based universities today is that children of church members cannot afford to attend owing to the exorbitant fees. What do you do here to reduce the burden for members?

Our members and parents who cannot afford to pay the fee in lump sum are given opportunity to make payments in three installments. If your school fee is N400,000 for example, when you pay N100,000, your child will come in. But in addition to that, there is a Josephus Foundation which is put in place by our member, Chief Tunde Afolabi, for indigent students. He gives scholarship to students, pays their fees and gives them feeding and book allowances every year. There are other schemes too that will be put in place very soon. 
Yes, the fees are high; but then, what are these fees used for? Federal and state universities get funds from government; faith-based universities have no government to give them anything. TETFund money is there for public universities; they build for them, sponsor research; but this is not extended to faith-based universities, yet all of us contribute money, through tax, to that fund. And we have to run. We just started Law last year, and the NUC said we must have 12 lecturers – including professors and doctors. How do you pay 12 lecturers for a programme just starting? In this university, we have no grant from anywhere, but the wage bill every month is more than N50 million. And Ajayi Crowther University pays salary scale of federal universities, because we have to compete with others to get staff. That is why the cost is high. It’s an economic reality at this time. But we are looking at ways to make it easier. I am not happy myself that the church is running an institution that is beyond the reach of the poor people.

You are barely two months here as VC. What would you love to have achieved at the end of your tenure?

By the grace of God, at the end of my five-year tenure, I would love to have been able to turn this to a world class university. I would want it to be the most comfortable university for any student to study in. I also look forward to a situation where more courses will be introduced. I would like to leave behind a university that is self-sufficient financially; that has a good compliment of education both in terms of academics and spirituality. I would want a university whose products are good professionals who are spiritually sound. I would also like to see a university that has moved substantially to its permanent site (along Ogbomoso road). It is my intention that as from next year, development will commence on that site. I want a university where the system works; where students and staff are happy. These are my expectations.

Culled from Nigerian Tribune Newspaper – Published on 17th December 2015 (Page 24)