Why I Love Our Public Institutions of Higher Learning

By Ogiri John Ogiri.

There is a reason I love the public universities, Polytechnics and Colleges particularly the federal government-owned institutions. Honestly,

it is difficult for any student to graduate with a first class degree or diploma without working hard and showing sufficient academic and intellectual justifications for such an award.

I graduated from Kaduna Polytechnic with a distinction a few years ago. I knew how hard it was getting that grade. As a public institution, Kaduna Polytechnic ensured that every student provided sufficient proofs of intellectual cum academic capabilities to justify that he or she was worth every single mark one obtained. So I was made to work hard for whatever grade I eventually got. 

I literally burned my midnight candles all through, read voraciously every academic material or literary work I ever came into contact with, held free tutorial classes with my course mates and other like-minded students and contemporaries just to sharpen my intellectual claws and further the reinforcement of my academic prowess in pursuit of intellectual cum academic excellence. For this, my greatest respect goes to all my lecturers there. They offered the initial challenge that made this possible. They would stress the hell out of you academically to ensure they were producing the best. I hope Kaduna Polytechnic still maintains that standard.

Now at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I am still face to face with the reality that one cannot just graduate top of one's class without working hard. There is no magic for academic success outside hard work. I am grateful to all the lecturers providing this tasking mentorship to all of us there. That is what I want. I love the university where students are made to justify every single mark they earn and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria provides this opportunity for me. I have done an IJMBE programme moderated by the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria before so this is not new to me. 

This is why I will always wave my cap for these two federal institutions of higher learning and others which do not easily compromise standard just to produce first class candidates.

Honestly, the rate at which our modern day private universities produce first class graduates in Nigeria these days is becoming alarmingly disturbing. I do not want to be accused of hasty conclusion by sounding quite absolute without recourse to serious empirical investigations, but available experiential evidences obviously make it quite irresistible for one to submit that some of these 21st century private schools have a share of some unforgivable culpabilities in why many students no longer believe in extensive academic readings in modern times. Some of these schools are the reasons some students no longer find extensive study interesting and a noble mental exercise to engage in. With their capitalist pursuit of super-normal profits, they have successfully diversified education from an institution once devoted solely to the provision of social services to an economic enterprise purely driven by pecuniary mandates.

As it stands now, in most modern day Nigeria's private schools, those who can sustain payments of tuition fees running into millions of Naira per session can rest in the assurance that they can always get promoted to the next level or class.

I have no grouse with anyone getting first class grades. Yes, those who deserve it should be so awarded but when this becomes the policy of a private university just to win ego-coated accolades and supports from the political community, then it should worry everyone.

This is why, despite the paltry annual budgetary allocation to the sector by the Federal Government of Nigeria, I still prefer to study in the Nigeria's public universities, Polytechnics and Colleges to studying in the private schools.

Congratulation to the newest first class Law graduate of Baze University, Abuja.

NB: Image above is Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.