Frontline educationist and multi-time Commissioner for Education in Delta State , Prof. Patrick Muoboghare, has held that Nigerian universities remained among the best in the world.
He pegged his view on the potency of the products of Nigerian universities whom he held as world beaters.
Fielding questions from The Blaze Newspapers in Asaba, the former Commissioner for Education in Delta State, said that all perceptions of deficiency on the part of the products of Nigerian universities were based on ignorance, rather the most credible assessment yardstick, which he defined as product efficiency
He said that such ignorance needed to be repudiated by what he termed the fact of the stellar performance of the typical product of the system.
Muoboghare, a retired Professor of Political Science at Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka, and once its Dean of Student Affairs, acknowledged that the Nigerian school system, including at the tertiary level, lacked many facilities for optimal performance on its mandate, just like many other sectors of national life.
However, he held that , in spite of their obvious limitations in that regard, the schools had earned a credible reputation for product efficiency.
Muoboghare, one of the authors of the lead paper that led to the simultaneous successful establishment of three more public universities at Ozoro, Agbor and Asaba, by the Delta State Government, and served as the Civil Commissioner that saw to their successful birthing, said that Nigerian universities had successfully conquered the inclemency of their operational environment by effective improvisation, such that products of the system had earned respect and become globally sought for their efficiency in industry.
“I beat my chest that the Nigerian university system is about the best in the world…ASUU is always saying we need this and that,but it has never said that we are turning out poor or inefficient graduates.
Yes, we could do better and the process of turning them out could be easier with top class facilities, he said, adding,
“There is the temptation to say that Nigerian universities are performing poorly. We ( university teachers) produce human capital at the highest level. It is very easy to say that the Nigerian university system is bad, useless and that universities are no more doing what they are supposed to do, or that they are performing their functions very poorly, hence there should be a revolution in the universities, and I laugh.
Which university system are you taking about when our doctors are the most sought after the world over- in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany , Russia?.No, you cannot say that as of fact. Our ( Nigeria trained )Engineers are everywhere in the world.
Our Accountants are there, as are our Quantity Surveyors. Everywhere you go, you see a Nigerian trained in Nigeria dominating, and I am not taking of those trained in the United States or elsewhere.”
To further drive home his submission, Prof. Muoboghare held that even at the post graduate level, Nigerian university products had earned a global reputation for leading the pack.
Again, his words, ” And to tell you how good our university education is in Nigeria, let somebody make a Third Class in Nigeria or Second Class Lower and go to the United States for a Master’s Degree, he or she will dust all those from other countries. The records are to prove this, in spite of what people say that the facilities are not enough. I agree that the facilities are not fully there ,but that is why we have improvisation, and because the children learnt in an improvised environment, when they go to where the facilities are , they just laugh and ask,’ is this what we are doing for the Master’s Degree?’ Our graduates are well baked.”
The commercial mixed farmer and politician, said the same level of efficiency runs across the entire spectrum of the country’s education sector .
