Close to 240 top-grade lecturers with first-class honours have exited the University of Lagos within seven years, the institution’s immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, revealed on Tuesday during a forum on education funding in Lagos.
Professor Ogundipe, shared eye-opening figures that show a persistent challenge facing Nigerian universities. He explained that between 2015 and 2022, UNILAG employed 256 lecturers who graduated with first-class honours, but as of October 2023, only 17 of them remained on staff. The vast majority have moved on, largely due to unsatisfactory pay, difficult working environments, and a lack of motivation.
He warned that if conditions do not improve, within the next decade, women will dominate university faculties, as it is already the case in secondary schools, while less qualified candidates may fill postgraduate seats.
He pointed to the difficult realities for lecturers who often face irregular electricity supply, asserting that government loan offers are insufficient to address deeper issues.
How does a N10 million loan help when daily survival is a struggle? Our young academics are exhausted and disheartened…at UNILAG, poor pay and harsh work conditions have forced our brightest lecturers to leave. Without urgent action, teaching staff will be overwhelmingly female, and postgraduate admissions will suffer in quality…the government’s funding barely scratches the surface of what is needed; we require inventive financial strategies involving all sectors
Sharing light on the chronic underfunding in Nigerian higher education, he noted that federal and state budgets for the sector have consistently fallen below 10 percent of total allocations, substantially less than UNESCO’s recommended range of 15 to 26 percent. This shortfall has led many universities to depend heavily on internally generated revenue, which ideally should focus on advancing research rather than plugging funding gaps.
Ogundipe, who also serves as the Pro-Chancellor of Redeemer’s University in Osun State, lamented the dilapidated infrastructure and insufficient technological resources limiting quality education delivery.
To address these challenges, Ogundipe proposed creative financing methods beyond government funding. These include public-private collaborations, alumni contributions, philanthropy, education bonds, and leveraging digital solutions to improve efficiency and accountability in funding deployment.
Ogundipe appealed to all stakeholders, government officials, private businesses, alumni, civil society groups, faith organizations, media, and donor agencies, to contribute actively in reshaping Nigeria’s educational landscape. He urged the National Assembly to legislate minimum yearly funding of at least N1 billion for each first-generation university to tackle infrastructure decay.
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