Gbajabiamila: Varsities Must Seek Ways to Boost Profiles to Attractive International Students

Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo

Chief of Staff to  President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, yesterday, said nation’s public universities seek ways to increase their international profiles to become attractive destinations for international students willing to pay fees that might otherwise be practically and politically inexpedient for native students.

Speaking  as a guest lecturer at the first Osun state University annual lecture titled: “Interrogating Funding of Education, Global versus Nigerian Perspectives”,Gbajabiamila stressed that the financial contributions of international students were a significant revenue stream for universities worldwide, helping to subsidise university education for the citizens of those countries.

He noted that policymakers and university administrators in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and even Africa have long implemented policies and strategies to boost the enrollment of international students because they could charge those students tuition and other fees that they couldn’t realistically charge their citizens.

Gbajabiamila also stated that for Nigeria’s universities to compete favourably in this arena, they would require a dramatic and sustained increase in quality across the board.

“It will also require reforms of curriculum and teaching methods, investments to ensure technology access and comfortable and suitable lodgings, among others.

“It would require us to embrace a culture of zero tolerance for unethical conduct and a coordinated effort to eradicate such ills as plagiarism, cultism and sexual harassment from our universities,” he said.

According to him, true reform would require a fundamental shift in how these institutions operate, which might involve stronger accountability measures, independent oversight, and a culture of transparency, where abuse was not just punished after the fact but prevented in the first place.

He further stated that universities should not be places where power was wielded unchecked but exercised responsibility for the benefit of the academic community.

“The first step in this regard is for the government and the various stakeholders in the public universities system to ask what makes universities in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, and in all the other places where millions of Nigerians have moved to over the years, to seek education, attractive,” he said.

The second step, he noted, “is to audit our systems to understand the financial, cultural, political, structural and other factors mitigating our ability to recreate such conditions.”