Akujuobi Chimezie, a father with a daughter in a private university in Nigeria, sees training his child in such a high fee-paying institution as an investment. In the long term, he reasons, such an investment will give his daughter a headstart in the competitive global knowledge economy of the 21st century.
Chimezie is one of the many Nigerian parents who have opted to train their children in privately-owned universities where tuition fees are higher than in universities owned by the federal and state governments.
Nigerian parents with means pay on average between N450,000 and N3 million per student annually in fees across the 79 private universities approved by National Universities Commission (NUC).
Low funding, infrastructure challenges and constant disruption of academic calendars in government-owned universities occasioned by strike actions by academic and non-academic staff unions are among the reasons parents opt for private universities for their children. The disruption of academic calendars means that students in government-owned universities spend longer years in school than they ordinarily should.
Private universities churn out about 23,448 graduates annually, according to Nigerian University System Statistical Digest 2017, a publication by the NUC.
But Nigerian parents’ faith in a good and often expensive private university education is being tested as their children with private university education fail to secure immediate employment. Growing economic uncertainties across the country no longer assure immediate return on investment. A 2019 report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s state-owned data agency, puts the unemployment rate at 23.1 percent and underemployment at 16.6 percent.
Ajayi Famakinwa, a businessman whose child holds a degree in Computer Science from a private university in Ogun State, told BusinessDay that the purpose of paying such huge school fees to see his son through university is hanging in the balance as the son is yet to secure any meaningful employment after graduation.
Paul Mbadigha, a civil servant whose three children graduated from private universities in Nigeria, said two of his children are employed while the other one is still waiting for employment opportunity.
Recounting the pressure that training his children in private universities put on his family budget, Mbadigha said the worsening economic situation in country has made it difficult for him and a lot of parents who spend huge sums to send their children to private school to get instant return on their investments.
“I am yet to really see a return on the huge investment I made in training my children in private university,” he said.
Among the 79 private universities in Nigeria, only Babcock University Ilishan-Remo made it to the top 20 universities with a good return on investment, according to the Nigerian Graduate Report 2018, prepared by Stutern in partnership with BudgIT and Jobberman. The rest were federal and state universities.
The report also shows that graduates are 10 times more likely to get a job through their personal contacts than their academic institutions and that chances of getting a job more than double with either social media platforms or online job sites than with traditional media.
“Overall, the graduates we surveyed believed that their academic experience prepared them more for further studies (86.8 percent of respondents) than for employment (69.4 percent of respondents). Although 69.4 percent of these graduates concluded that their education prepared them for employment, only 28.6 percent of employers believed so,” the report indicated.
Nigeria’s negligible spending in education could explain the country’s dilapidated infrastructure at all levels, especially at the tertiary level. The poor quality of teachers and lack of teaching aids as well as the frequent strikes have distorted the calendar of federal and state universities.
For over a decade, the budget allocated to the sector has consistently fallen short of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) recommended 26 percent.
Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary, NUC, believes that well-educated citizens and skills revolution underpinned by science, technology and innovation for a knowledge society are the way to go for any country that hopes to achieve result.
He observed that with the right investment in education, economies can be structurally transformed to create shared growth, decent jobs and economic opportunities for all.
The Stutern’s Nigerian Graduates Report indicates that KPMG tops the list of employers that offer the best opportunities for graduates. Companies in the top 10 include Andela, Shell, PwC, Chevron, civil service, Dangote, Deloitte, Access Bank and ExxonMobil.
Analysis of the highest-paying industries from the report shows that for first job opportunities, oil and gas industry, logistics/transportation and banking and finance were the top three sectors that offer the best pay in the country. These industries have the highest respondents earning N200,000 and more. Healthcare, telecommunications, agriculture/fishing/poultry offered the least-paying first jobs. The education industry employs majority of recent graduates during their first or subsequent jobs.
“The industries that experienced the most increase in the number of recent graduates upon a switch are media, technology and healthcare sectors. The industries that were most stable (no rapid fall or rise) include agriculture, transportation and consulting industry,” the report said.
In terms of courses the most employed graduates studied, Medicine, Library and Information Science, and Marketing topped the list. From the survey, 47.58 percent of recent graduates studied the top 20 courses listed.
The report also shows that three out of five (60 percent) of Nigerian graduates earn less than N50,000 ($139) as their first job monthly salary. Upon getting a later job, that number falls to two out of five (a little above 40 percent). Overall, most recent graduates earn between N20,000 and N49,999 ($56 to $139) in their first job after graduation while for their later salary, most earn between N50,000 and N99,999 ($139-$278).
KELECHI EWUZIE
