An educational proposal to northern governors

idooba@gmail.com



The inspiration to write this proposal came from the obvious; the North's almost zilch presence in all the professions in the country. This is because the South has more children enrolled in schools. It has more undergraduate students in the universities and colleges. The South also has more graduates who are in the market for jobs and more professionals who are already working.



While the foregoing might be the inspiration for writing this, the push to write came while I was going through the list of undergraduate scholarship award of Mobil Producing Nigeria, and earlier in Okene while I was presenting a paper at National Higher Institutions Conference of Muslim Students (NIHCOMS) on the 1 st of September, 2007.



Out of the 500 students announced by Mobil in Daily Trust of Tuesday 25th September, 2007 to have been awarded scholarship for the year 2006/2007 only 53 students or 1.6 per cent are northerners. It will interest your Excellencies and the Grand Chief Servants that the north alone has 19 states leaving the South with the remaining 17 states. But Akwa Ibom state alone had more students on that list than all the northern states put together.



Besides the concessions given to candidates from oil producing states, the award of scholarship by oil companies is entirely based on merit. This shows that the northern candidates didn't do well or only a few of them sat for the aptitude test. This is one reason that impelled me to write this proposal.



I was also goaded by what I felt at the conference mentioned earlier, while presenting my paper Higher education: the alternatives. There, I felt both happy and helpless.



I was happy because the northern student has gone beyond not-interested-in-school-attitude. They are not only interested in school, but are also interested in the best education possible. And this was where the helplessness crept in. While all of the students were interested in the cheaper and better alternatives enumerated, most of them didn't have the money to go for more degrees or professional qualifications and were still struggling in their current programmes in Nigerian universities.



That's where your powers and states' funds come in. I'm going to present here how with minimal resources the northern states can churn out thousands of professionals in different fields in the fastest time possible.



Courses covered



The following are the degrees, diplomas, professional qualifications we are going to discuss:

Law

Accounting

Computing

Journalism

Psychology

Political Science



Schools Covered



We shall consider only schools that are recognized by government, universities that are regionally accredited and colleges that are known and respected all over the world. Examples of these schools are: University of Portsmouth (UK), Charter Oak College (US), University of Tempere (Finland), Excelsior College (US), British Computer Society (UK), Thomas Edison University (US), International Research Association (US), ACCA (UK), London School of Journalism (UK), Free University of Germany, African International University of Sudan, etc.



How much does it cost?



Unlike the expensive degrees in America and Europe, most of these degrees and professional certifications are very affordable. That's I considered them in the first place. Most of them cost under N300, 000 (three hundred thousand naira).



So if Kaduna State for instance wants to support a hundred students through the British Computer Society professional certification in IT, which is equivalent to a university degree in the UK, it will cost Kaduna State only N30,000,000 (thirty million naira) or N60,000,000 (sixty million naira) for two hundred students. This is a ten million short of what the state budgeted for a certain sport festival. Another important fact to consider is that Kaduna State will have these computer professionals for many years and they will be enlightened enough to open their own businesses thereby speeding up the economic development of the state.



We also have to consider the discount the states will get as sponsoring governments of a developing economy.



Location

Some of the universities like Free University of Germany and University of Tempere are regular schools which conduct their tuitions on campus. Others are regular schools too with their campuses but offer cheaper distance learning and online instruction based courses. The professional courses are examination based. These examinations can be taken at British Council.



So the states can save cost further if they don't want to spend so much in air travel and accommodation by enrolling their students in the online and distance learning courses.





Duration

With a few exceptions all the courses we researched can be completed in two years.



How acceptable are the certificates

I often receive emails from readers asking how acceptable the certificates of the alternative degrees I talk so much about are. This underscores the preference or the importance Nigerians and our governments placed on certificates over quality tuition.

For the avoidance of doubt, all the schools we are going to discuss in this proposal are properly accredited. We didn't consider hundreds of degree mills we have on the Internet. A little research on the internet will confirm to your Excellencies that most of the institutions enumerated above are state funded. The schools are not really alternatives per se. It's just that a lot of Nigerians are ignorant of the fact that good affordable degrees exist.



We are going to take the schools their courses and certifications one after the other; starting from British Computer Society's Professional Graduate Diploma in IT.