By Abstract
This paper sought to analyze the academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy in the management of Nigerian university education using the philosophical approach. Concepts such as university education, academic freedom and institutional autonomy were discussed. Equally, related sub-headings such as management of university education in Nigeria, legal perspectives of academic freedom and institutional autonomy of Nigerian university education were conversed. It was reviewed that theoretically, Nigerian universities have been granted their fair share of autonomy but in actual practice do not have reasonable and workable autonomy. This informed the need to therefore analyze the academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy of universities in the management of Nigerian university education. Based on the analysis, the erosion of university autonomy is still on the increase as government still interferes in the appointment of key managers of the system such as Chancellors, Pro-Chancellors and external members of the governing councils to run the affairs of universities without recourse to the system. To this end, recommendations were made. The writers’ therefore concludes that for academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy in the management of Nigerian university education to be attainable, the government is expected to give autonomy to universities in the following areas such as: academic, administrative and finance. This is necessary in that an agreement which cannot be enforced or kept should not be undertaken, for it is like a sword which has no strength to secure a man at all.
Introduction
One of the universal ideas of the university is a community of scholars, free to pursue knowledge without undue interference from any quarters. In its strict sense, Benjamin is of the opinion that universities are ivory towers, where instruction is given and received without harassment and undue influence from the outside world.1 To this end, universities were established with autonomy. As expressed by Ojo, legal freedom is afforded to each university to conduct its own affairs and policies without undue interference from outside bodies, persons, or, most importantly, from the government.2 However, in recent times, though the laws establishing these universities are still intact with some reviewed, universities are no longer allowed the flexibility of the powers to manage their affairs in consonance with the laws
establishing them, hence the erosion of their autonomy. Going by the immediate state of act, Mbaji reiterated that many universities in Nigeria are still suffocating under strangulating control of the government.3 This tends to erode their academic freedom and institutional autonomy and calls for immediate intervention. The focus of this study therefore is to philosophically analyze the academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy of universities in the management of Nigerian university education. To this end, clarifications of concepts such as university education, academic freedom and institutional autonomy are considered necessary.
Conceptual Clarifications on University Education, Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy
The university is an institution at the highest level of education where one can study for a degree or research. Odekunle viewed universities as centres of excellence, where knowledge is not only acquired, but also disseminated to those who require it.4 Universities educate future leaders and develop the high-level technical capacities that underpin economic growth and development. Thus, the main purpose and relevance of university education in Nigeria is the provision of much needed manpower to accelerate the socio-economic development of the nation. They are formal institutions set up by the society to be centers of learning that is rich in ideas and ideals. Universities are enterprises that produce and distribute a “public good”, which is knowledge. Knowledge production is the focus of universities and the production of knowledge is the drive behind teaching and research.
Academic freedom is a generic word, consisting of academic and freedom. Freedom on one hand could be viewed as a state in which an individual can act without inhibition. On the other hand, academic is used to describe things that relate to the work done in schools, colleges, and universities, especially work which involves studying and reasoning rather than practical or technical skills. academic can equally be seen as a teacher or scholar in a university or other institute of higher learning. Put together, Sanda refers academic freedom to the freedom of individual members of the academic community to pursue their research, teaching, and learning.5 It is the liberty and obligation to study, investigate, present and interpret, and to discuss facts and ideas concerning man, human society, the physical and biological world in all branches and fields of learning.
Institutional autonomy is an institutional privilege. Fourie defined institutional autonomy as referring to the relative freedom of the institution to conduct its own affairs free from outside interference, whether from the state, the market, donors or other stakeholders.6 The author further states that institutional autonomy has two dimensions: Substantive autonomy: this has to do with the power of the institution to determine its own goals and programmes. Procedural autonomy: this refers to the power of the institution to determine the means by, which its goals and programmes will be pursued, the how of academy. However, Akpan and Glory holds that the essential ingredients of institutional autonomy include: (i) freedom to select staff and students; (ii) determine the conditions under which they remain in the university; (iii) freedom to determine curriculum contents and degree standards; and (iv) freedom to allocate funds across different categories of expenditures.7
Institutional autonomy and academic freedom as concepts are closely related, but are not the same. While institutional autonomy is an institutional privilege for the universities, lecturers enjoy academic freedom. Malherbe relates that, the two concepts, though closely related, however, are not the same for the following reasons: first, the actual content of academic freedom and university autonomy differ in the sense that the former refers to the rights of the individual academic, whereas the latter refers to those aspects of the right to be pursued by the institution. Secondly, although autonomy over academic-related matters includes matters of primary importance to the individual lecturer, academic freedom applies to everybody involved in the practice of science and not only to lecturers. Thirdly, for the fact that an autonomous university may restrict the academic freedom of its lecturers, autonomy, therefore, is no guarantee of academic freedom; it is, however, a question whether academic freedom can flourish in the absence of autonomy.8 To a reasonable extent, academic freedom and the autonomy of university depends on the managerial approach to university governance in relation to the coordination and management of university activities. To this end, the issue is; who in actual sense is the proprietor or the manager of Nigerian university education? Or how is university education managed in Nigeria? This question is one of the thrusts of this paper.
Management of University Education in Nigeria
University managers are the relevant stakeholders or bodies involved in the strategic formulation and implementation of the university’s broad policy and ensuring proper organization and coordination of human and material resources towards achieving the purpose and objectives for which the institutions were established.
However, management of university education in Nigeria can be looked at from two dimensions: the external and internal levels. At the external level, the universities are controlled by the federal government through the federal ministry of education. The Nigerian federal ministry of education is the government body that directs education in Nigeria. It was established in 1988. According to the federal ministry of education FME,functions of the federal ministry of educationamong others include: formulating a national policy on education, collating data for the purposes of educational planning and financing, maintaining uniform standards of education throughout the country and controlling the quality of education in the country through the supervisory role of the directors.9 Directors of federal ministry of education are staff of the federal ministry of education. They are senior officials of the federal ministry of education that directs education in Nigeria through various departments.
By internal management, each university is represented by a simple organogram. As explained by Adegbite, the first is the Visitor who is usually the Head of State or the Head of Government that established it, followed by the Chancellor, who is the titular head of the university and the Governing Council, which is headed by the Chairman (Pro-Chancellor) who is charged with the administrative functions in the areas of goal setting, policy formulation, staff development, general discipline, budget approval and liaison activities with the government.10 For Ibukun, the main organ regulating the internal academic activities of the universities is the Senate, headed by the Vice-Chancellor and the Registrar as the Secretary.11 According to the writer, the Senate regulates the academic activities of the university following the general guidelines provided by the federal ministry of education. To this end, there is need therefore to analyze the legal perspectives of academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy of Nigerian university education.
Legal Perspectives of Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy of Nigerian University Education
Institutional autonomyimplies that each institution should operate without undue interference from the government in the conduct of its affairs. Hence, the goals and objectives of the higher institutions will be achieved.
Thus, the following according to Akpan and Glory constitute legalindices of institutional autonomy.
- Respective universities must exercise legal right of ownership of University
- Assets including land, buildings and plants.
- Freedom to set strategic plans and pursue them independently.
- The right to budget for the running of the university.
- Freedom to design academic programmes that are considered suitable to the
- University
- The right to recruit and sack university academic and non-academic staff
- The freedom to determine the fees and charges students should pay
- The freedom to develop and run salary structure that is suitable to the university
- The right to determine students’ enrolment.
- The right to independently determine and run suitable academic calendar.
- The right to select administrative heads of the institution.
- The right to decide admission policy
- The right to determine the intake capacity in various courses and faculties
- The right to determine teachers’ work load.
- The right to conduct admission and degree awarding examinations.
- The right to enjoy full financial autonomy, including the right to run institutions bank account, operating internal auditing, right to generate income.
- Enjoying administrative autonomy void of government political and bureaucratic interference.12
Equally, every university has its law, edict or even decree which spells out the functions of the various organs, such as Council, Senate, Congregation, Faculty, Department, Institute and others. Thus, the functions of the university are usually clearly stated in its laws, which confer on the university such powers, as in its opinion are necessary to effectively advance the objects of the university. These functions for Okojie,usually include the following:
- to provide courses of instruction and learning in the identified disciplines;
- to make provisions for research and for the advancement of knowledge in the branches of learning in the identified disciplines for such persons and in such manner as it shall determine;
- to institute the various cadres in the career profile for academic and non-academic staff;
- to award degrees, in the identified disciplines, including honorary degrees, diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions such as fellowships bursaries, prizes, titles etc;
- to acquire by purchase or gift movable or immovable property and to sell, lease, mortgage or otherwise alienate or dispose of any such property;
- to establish campuses, facilities, schools, extra-moral departments and other teaching and research units within the university from time to time;
- to provide the necessary physical and infrastructural facilities including libraries, sporting facilities, lecture halls and others necessary for discharging the responsibilities implicit in its objects;
- subject to the provisions of the law, to invest any monies appearing to the university and such other monies that may not be immediately required for recurrent expenditure;
- to borrow money;
- to demand and receive from students such fees as the University may determine subject to the directives of the Minister for Education in case of Federal owned Universities and the appropriate offices in the case of State owned and Private Universities;
- to provide for the welfare and discipline of the students and other members of the University Community. 13
Consequent upon the above legalindices and functions of the university which spells out the functions of the various organs such as council, senate, congregation, faculty, department, institute and others, the law gives enough leverage to the system for effective institutional management. The problem therefore is: with the above legal backup, what are the factors that still undermine the degree of university autonomy? This informed the need to therefore analyze the academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy of universities in the management of Nigerian university education.
Analysis of Academic Freedom and Autonomy of Nigerian University Education
It is often believed that Nigerian universities have been granted their fair share of autonomy. Notwithstanding, Sorkaa submitted that the clamour for university autonomy across the globe is a clear indication that there exists the significant level of interference in the university administration and operation by the government and other external forces.14 Thus, the question at this juncture is: who owns the university and who funds
it? This question is necessary judging that the owner and sponsor of an institution are supposed to be in charge of the operation of the institution.
Going by the immediate state of act, it is obvious that Nigerian universities do not have reasonable and workable autonomy. It can be said that university or institutional autonomy is an unwritten covenant between society and the academic community which concedes to the latter a free will to determine its guiding principles and self-regulate itself. Thus, the Nigerian universities are tied to the financial apron strings of their provider of finances – that is government. The universities are forced to dance to the tunes composed and rendered outside their portals. This informs the assertion of Mbaji who holds that the Nigerian government in the context of institutional autonomy is a financial colonial master who tied the universities on her monetary twine.15
The issue of university autonomy and academic freedom has also been a vexed matter between government and the university managements. The Federal Republic of Nigeria had recognized that: the internal organization and administration of each institution (of higher learning) shall be its own responsibility; the traditional areas of academic freedom for the institutions are to select their students, except where the law prescribes otherwise; appoint their staff; teach, select areas of research; and determine the content of courses.16 However, government has always hidden under the following clause, which says: “Government shall continue to respect this freedom as long as these areas are in consonance with national goals”. The question is: What constitutes “consonance with national goals”? In actual practice, what is university autonomy? Ojedele and Ilusanya describe university autonomy as protection of the universities from interference by government officials in the day to day running of the institution especially on the issues related to the selection of student, the appointment and removal of academic staff including the vice-chancellors, the determination of content of university education and the control of the degree, standard and the determination of size and the rate of growth. 17
Indeed, university autonomy implies that each university must be governed according to the law that establishes it. Every university has its law, edict or even decree which spells out the functions of the various organs, such as Council, Senate, Congregation, Faculty, Department, Institute and others. But successive governments have often infringed on this autonomy, usually hiding under the cover of national interest. According to Ajayi and Ayodele, government involvement in university governance has been a cause of strife between the government and ASUU over some time now.18 Universities suffered from arbitrary governance, rather than being a place where justice and truth are to be nurtured, the universities triumphed on mediocrity and untruths. As stated by Arikewuyo, promotion was earned through sycophancy and the admission procedure became systematically bastardized. 19 In addition, the author stated that past and present governments have encroached on university autonomy. Equally, staff and student unions were banned and unbanned at various times, many Vice Chancellors have been removed for not complying with directives from the government, a major General was even appointed as the sole administrator in a first generation university, many academics have been dismissed for instance, forty-nine academic staff of the University of Ilorin were dismissed for taking part in a nation-wide strike called by ASUU in 2001. Thus, the question is: if academics could be dismissed unjustly in a democratic government, one could imagine what would happen under a military regime?
The erosion of university autonomy is still on the increase as Government still interferes in appointment of key managers of the system such as Chancellors, Pro-Chancellors and external members of the governing councils to run the affairs of universities without recourse to the system. Such appointments are made most times to reward political patronage. Without a doubt, it has become common place to have some university councils’ members whose knowledge of University affairs is ill equipped. As a result, it is quite challenging for Nigerian universities to recruit, sustain, and retain some of their talents. As such, quality human resource is lost to the organized private sector or to some foreign universities that provide better options than what is obtained in Nigeria. To this end, government-owned universities in Nigeria suffer a lot of setback in terms of falling standards, deteriorating infrastructure, and poor human resource development, which emanates from years of poor funding and direct interference into its day to day administration by government agencies and some regulatory bodies responsible for standards, quality, and admissions. Judging from the above state of acts, can one boldly state that Nigerian universities have been granted their fair share of autonomy? This question, in actual sense is an irony or sarcasm as institutional autonomy in the management of Nigerian university education is far-fetched.
Recommendations
The following recommendations are hereby made to aid academic freedom and institutional autonomy in the management of Nigerian university education:
- The Nigerian universities institutions should be given free hands to govern themselves. In that case, the power of NUC over the control of academic programs, determination and maintaining academic programs and academic standard should be reduced and be given to the institutions to be exercised through the university Senate.
- The universities (Miscellaneous) Act, 1993, gives the senate of each university powers, among other things, to have control over teaching and research; admission of students; award of degrees, as well as promotion of research in accordance with university statutes and laws. In this regard, the governments, especially visitors to the universities need to imbibe the culture of democratic principles. In that wise the universities should be allowed to govern themselves according to the laws and acts that establish them.
- Appointments of governing councils and principal officers should be largely carried out with reasonable consent of universities. Such appointments should not be made to reward political patronage whose knowledge of university affairs is ill equipped.
- Government should desist from compelling universities to rely on public service circulars for their day to day administration since the universities on their own runs a calendar distinct from that of the civil service.
Conclusion
The struggle to rebuild institutional autonomy and academic freedom as a means of re engineering Nigerian universities is not a demand for monastic separation from society. It is a sincere and right step to impart knowledge in materially tolerable conditions without hindrance from political authorities. Thus, for academic freedom of lecturers and institutional autonomy in the management of Nigerian university education to be attainable, government is expected to give autonomy to universities in the following areas such as: academic, administrative and finance. Though, absolute freedom may not be possible. Nevertheless, the universities should still be allowed to be run according to universally acceptable norms and principles. In that wise, the various organs of the university, such as governing council, senate, faculties and departments should be allowed to perform their statutory functions. This is necessary in that an agreement which cannot be enforced or kept should not be undertaken, for it is like a sword which has no strength to secure a man at all.
References
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Akpan K. & Glory A. (2017) Ibid
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Sorkaa, A.P. (2001). University Autonomy and Academic Freedom: Problems and Prospects. A paper presented at the 2001 National Conference of the Association of Nigerian University Professional Administrators (ANUPA), held at Central Auditorium (North Core), University of Agriculture, Makurdi; 21st – 23rd November.
Mbaji, I. N. (2017). Ibid
Federal Ministry of Education (2008). Ibid
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