As the debate over Funding Models for Nigeria’s tertiary institutions rages, Newsdiaryonline publishes a policy paper by Omano Edigheji, PhD former Special Adviser to Governor El-Rufai on Research and Special Programmes June 2021.
It gives an insight into the foresight by Malam Nasir El-Rufai immediate past Governor of Kaduna State.
An insider in the past regime told Newsdiaryonline at the weekend that it is important government policies are evidence-based.
The insider further argued “The current funding model of universities is unsustainable. Nigeria is too poor a country to have a free university education. It is in this regard that there is a need to come up with multiple revenue streams, including the introduction of tuition fees.”
Even more, Newsdiaryonline was told that “this policy discussion by the El-Rufai’s administration informed its increase in tuition fees to make the Kaduna State-Owned Higher Education sustainable”
Newsdiaryonline also notes that contrary to the data driven policy by El-Rufai, his preferred successor, Malam Uba Sani has reduced fees to be paid by students of state-owned tertiary institutions.
Addressing journalists, according to a report by TheCable , Uba Sani said , “The welfare of the people is our topmost priority. Our administration shall continue to take all measures necessary to ensure access to free and qualitative education for every child in Kaduna state from primary to secondary school,” he said.
“We will expand access to higher education, enhance teachers’ welfare and teaching standards, improve school infrastructure, build ICT competence in our students from the basic education level and intensify investments in technical & vocational education.”
See below the Executive Summary the paper that informed El-Rufai’s decision.Readers can click on accompanying links for the full paper.
Also there was El-Rufai era Student Loan Scheme.The loan scheme, according to the insider who spoke with Newsdiaryonline , was to show that El-Rufai’s policy was not just about raising fees, but that there were also arrangements to support the indigent.
Excerpts:
Finances of Kaduna State-owned Higher Education Institutions: Implications for access, quality, relevance, excellence, and innovation.
A Policy Discussion Document, By Omano Edigheji, PhD Special Adviser on Research and Special Programmes June 2021
Executive Summary
(i) Education is one of the vital and most important priority of the Kaduna State Government hence, concerted efforts have been made to improve both quality and access to our people. As a social service, there is an ongoing debate on the funding and support of institutions across the world. Recently, there is a growing concern on the sources and expenditure of universities around the world. Population explosion and its attendant effects have made it necessary for government to explore additional sources of funding of higher education institutions. This is to enable the state to provide better educational services to the growing population. With diminishing revenue and a increasing demand for the provision of education, this requires rethink on the part of the government, parents and students on the sources of revenue and expenditure of Higher Education Institutions.
(ii) Majority of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), including universities derive their income via different sources including government grants, tuition fees, research grants etc. While they have various sources of revenue, they are also faced with numerous income consuming expenditures, chief among them are employee-related expenses and capital expenditure. Others include interest payment, depreciation, purchase of goods and services, purchase of non-financial assets, and other payments.
(iii) This policy discussion document provides a comparative analysis of Kaduna State higher institutions and other institutions across the country with data obtained from different sources. Tuition fees of private universities was obtained from the respective websites of the universities while data for state universities was obtained from telephonic interviews with vice chancellors and other members of the university management.
(iv) Since its establishment sixteen years ago in 2004, successive governments have not undertaken upward review of KASU tuition fees, thereby creating a lag between inflation and current costs. The most recent date of tuition fee review of Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria was May 18th, 2015, while tuition for College of Education, Gidan Waya was last reviewed in 2014. Thus, while cost of running these HEIs have increased, their fees have remained the same, without taking into consideration inflation and infrastructure required to have HEIs that produce qualified graduates.
(v) It is in this light that this report explores the sources of revenue and expenditures of universities around the globe. The document explores sources of income and expenditure of universities in the United Kingdom, University of Birmingham, Australia, South Africa, and Kenya. It makes use of descriptive statistics extensively to give greater insights into their revenue and expenditure.
(vi) This policy discussion document finds that 90% of Kaduna State University’s expenditure is financed by government subsidy. Compared to universities in the UK where government grants are only 6% of revenue and Australian universities where government grant is 46% of revenue, KASU is highly dependent on funding from the government. For Kenyan universities, government grant is 28.6% of total revenue while for universities in South Africa, government grant is 53% of total revenue. Unlike the comparative cases, KASU is more dependent on government subsidy.
(vii) In terms of expenditure, salaries, and employee related compensations account for 85% of Kaduna State University’s total recurrent expenditure. In the UK, salaries account for 28% of total recurrent expenditure, 62% for Australian universities, 55% for South African universities and 58% for Kenyan universities. When a large share of expenditure goes towards just one component, it leaves an insignificant amount for overall development (such as research, laboratory, technology, etc.) of the university.
(viii) This policy discussion document further finds that tuition fees charged by Kaduna State University is lower relative than most states universities in the country, charging N26,150 in total fees for Undergraduate Programs and N50,000 – N70,000 in total fees for graduate and post-graduate programs. Ambrose Alli University charges N90,000 – N160,000, Ekiti State University charges N56,000 – N170,000, Sokoto State University charges N40,000 – N60,000 and Bauchi State University charges N40,000 – N96,000.
(ix) Relative to some selected private primary and secondary schools in the State, whose tuition fees stand at an average of N43,502.50 and N201,358.33 respectively, the fees of KASU is much lower.
(x) The most noteworthy observations made are as follows:
- Revenue generated from tuition fees at Kaduna State-owned HEIs is insufficient to finance salaries and other expenses.
- 90% of Kaduna State University’s (KASU) revenue comes from government subsidy, making it highly dependent on government subsidy. The University lacks a diversified/multiple revenue streams.
- The cost of obtaining a medical degree and other sciences at KASU is
N26,150, which is 58% of the cost of obtaining a diploma in basic nursing (N45,000) at College of Nursing and Midwifery. In the Kaduna State Civil Service, the entry level for Medical Doctors is Level 12 while Nurses start at Level 8. The rationale for charging higher fees for a diploma in nursing is unclear. Certainly, across the globe, fees for medical degrees are higher than those for nursing diplomas and degrees. - The HEIs have not prioritized generating research grants from external sources. This adversely impact on their capacity to undertake research that will create new knowledge and research outputs that can be commercialised.
- From analysis of the State-owned HEIs’ revenue sources, there is no evidence of linkages with industry. This has a number of implications, including a miss-matched between graduates of the institutions and the need of the labour market. This in turn lead to the crisis of graduate unemployment in the States, like other parts of the country.
(xi) The policy discussion document made recommendations that should be of interests to all stakeholders in the higher education sector, namely, KDSG, management and academics in the public HEIs, parents, students, the private sector and development partners. It therefore recommends a total overhaul and restructuring of the current funding model of Kaduna State-owned HEIs through diversification of revenue base, regular upward review of fees to account for inflation and to meet current costs, creation of fees paying programs at the public HEIs in the State, introduction of performance-based funding, partnerships between the HEIs and industry, prioritization of external research grants, producing research outputs that can be turn into commercial products, incubating Start-up companies, commercial farming, running bookshops and real estate. The HEIs need to develop a new strategy to seek external research grant. The point is HEIs in the state need to be entrepreneurial for their financial sustainability. This is necessary to ensure quality, promote quality and are relevant to the development needs of the State.
Financing higher education is an expensive enterprise – knowledge creation and its dissemination do not come cheap, but investment in the sector of knowledge and innovation is sine qua non to economic, social, and cultural development and global competitiveness. High-end expertise, expensive equipment and instruments, extensive infrastructure (such as labs, libraries, and dormitories) and the accompanying requisite logistics (such as information technology), and a complex academic culture entail that the sector, unlike primary and secondary education, its younger subsectors, is costly in ways that cannot be simply compared to them or considered as simple add-ons to these foundational educational levels.
FULL PAPER (Click to download): Finances of Kaduna State-owned Higher Education Institutions
