Ranking: Nigerian universities under-report  research efforts — Kolawole, TU VC 

By Adesina Wahab

Having spent about three decades working in a public university, Prof. Clement Olusegun Kolawole, moved to a private university, Trinity University, Yaba, Lagos, as acting Vice Chancellor before becoming the substantive VC. In this interview, he shares his experience and the difference between working in a public university and moving to a private university setting. Excerpts.

A little bit of your background

I am Professor Clement Olusegun Kolawole, a professor of Language Education, Reading, Curriculum and Instruction. I came from the University of Ibadan to assume position as the Acting Vice Chancellor of Trinity University in 2023. On March 15, 2024, I was confirmed as Vice Chancellor for a four-year tenure. We thank God for the results we have achieved and what we are still achieving.

Transiting from a public university to a private one, what has the experience been?

It has been very challenging and innovative in the sense that there are new things I have learnt. For example, I can say that there is a big difference between a public and a private university. As a VC in a private university, the VC is expected to give regular feedback to the proprietors – sometimes they come regularly. They want to see what their money is bringing back to them, not in terms of profit, but in terms of the deliverables. For example, my university was set up for specific reasons – produce a complete person in character and in learning, not by talking about it, but actually living it.

So, my proprietors come here regularly. They are interested in the quality of teaching, the quality of staff, the quality of infrastructure, students’ conduct, how well they are responding to virtues we want to inculcate in them. These include honesty, empathy, responsibility, integrity, hard work, trustworthiness, etc. These are things that are missing in the larger society today. Here, my proprietors value them so much that each time they come here, they want to see the way our students dress, the way they comport themselves, the way they welcome visitors, the way they carry themselves. 

Even to members of staff, how do they dress? You cannot just dress casually. In a public university system, that is one of the things they tolerate under academic freedom. That is regulated in a private university and I think  that is important. It means a university is a serious place for learning and character, discipline and skills acquisition. Our proprietors also respond positively to our needs which is also not the same thing in the public university system.

One of our proprietors used to say that  there should be a synergy between private set up and public set up, so that the public set up could deliver much more than they are delivering now. There is so much room for wastage in public universities, but in a private university, every kobo is earned and accounted for.  Yearly, we have budgetary session where you defend the budget you had the previous year, where you justify every kobo you are expecting for your unit. Only recently, the Minister of Education said public universities are not creative in generating funds and that is what we do creatively in private universities. When you are given money to do something, you are asked what income it would generate and that sets us thinking.

I said to somebody recently that the about 30 years I spent in the public university system and the few years I have spent in a private university system are different. The few years in have spent here, I have become a business man myself because my orientation has changed.

What is special about Trinity University?

Trinity University is a home away from home in all material respect because right from the gate, we assume responsibility for the total well being of our students.  We ensure that our students attend classes regularly. We ensure that they sit their tests regularly. We ensure that the environment is conducive for learning and social interactions for the development of the potential to navigate the larger society. We ensure that our students also realize the importance of the investment their parents are making. So, each time we have a session with them, we tell them don’t forget to say a word of appreciation to your parents who are making a lot of sacrifice to keep you here. It cost a lot of money.

We assure them that when they come in, they can count the day they are graduating because we run a very stable academic calendar. Every year, we start in September and finish at the end of May. Our students have three months to go on industrial attachment etc. We also ensure that our students get their results on time. We have hostel facilities that are conducive and quality members of staff. Then our selling point is we make the payment of our fees friendly. Our students are allowed to pay over a period of four instalments. Once you get a letter of admission, you pay 40 percent, end of first semester 20 percent, beginning of second semester, 20 percent and before second semester examination 20 percent. This makes it easy for people to do business with us. Every year, we also rework our facilities and infrastructure. Lastly, we also make students to know that we don’t go near any programme that is not accredited. We don’t take a risk or gamble. If you are for a programme here be rest assured that it has been accredited by the National Universities Commission and other relevant bodies.

Some universities use ‘mercenaries’ to get programmes accredited, and the Education Minister few days ago clamped down on such practices, what is your take and can you vouch for the excellence of your staff? 

Let us start from the last part, I can vouch for the competence and excellence of my staff. We have three categories of staff – which is allowed. We have tenured staff, visiting lecturers/ those on sabbatical and part time lecturers. That is the standard practice in the university system. We don’t work with mercenaries . What we do is this, we believe in peer review system, which is the hallmark of the university system. As we speak, I have 10 professors from different universities that have come to assess those aspiring to become associate professors and professors. For us to make the process fast, the people involved must be worthy in all respect and aspects, I brought the professors from about seven universities.

We gave them the papers of those seeking promotion and they have been assessing since morning . As soon as they are done, they will meet me and give me oral reports and we will collate the reports to decide who move to the next stage of assessment before the final decision is taken. 

Also, when we want to do our recruitment, we ensure that people come for interviews. Some of our proprietors do attend such sessions to ensure that they are not putting their money behind a candidate they cannot trust. So, in this university, each time we want to do accreditation of courses, we don’t engage mercenaries.

We ensure that we get the category of staff and equipment we need. All members of Trinity Education Foundation are Christians with character and good report and they won’t cut corners. Our infrastructure is being upgraded. Recently, we acquired a six story building on Commercial Avenue, Yaba and our Nursing School is moving there. We value quality in what we do. We are preparing for another accreditation exercise next November.

We don’t pretend to be what we are not so that if there are areas we need to improve on, they can advise us and we will do the needful. We know that the quality of staff, infrastructure, teaching and learning will determine the quality of graduates we produce  

Any plan to move to a bigger place?

For Trinity University, we have about 500 acres of land at Laloko in Ogun State. It is a future campus. Yaba here is our city campus and it can host six faculties at most. As we are growing, we need to acquire properties and expand. We are looking forward to NUC allowing us to run Public Health, Environmental  Health and Community Health. NUC has come for the first assessment. We are ready once they give us the go ahead. 

We will advertise to take students. NUC will give two-year provisional accreditation and come back again to see if you have addressed any issue raised. 

Advice for anyone planning to set up a university

It is very expensive to run a university. That is why I want to commend the government that is running this number of universities and not charging fees competitively. Most people take it for granted. If the government was to charge  fee, most of us would not access university education. If a person wants to start a private university, he must ensure that he has the resources. Just two weeks ago, we have a cylinder in one of our laboratories and the knob got broken, it is to be replaced at a cost of N2 million and at least a university needs two of such. That is just one item. We contemplated moving our MLS laboratory to our new annex, the Head of Department said we need about N400 million to do that. That is just a lab for a course.

Setting up a university is not just one enterprise that one jumps into without considering the cost because once you start, you need to sustain it. Members of staff would demand more welfare packages. We want to pay the salary the federal government is paying. The income that is available to us is not the same with what is available to the federal government but the same quality of staff, graduate and education. In fact, I am not sure my proprietors have broken even in terms of the money they have invested.

To make profit from a university, you may have to wait for between 10-15 years. That is if you have the complement of students that will come to your place. We are lucky that we are in Yaba and we have facilities for accommodation. We have about 2,500 students now and about 80 percent live on campus. We hope to increase to about 3,500 as we add three new courses to the 19 fully accredited ones we now have. 

Poor ranking of Nigerian universities 

In the last couple of years, Nigerian universities have started making efforts. When we started our teaching job over 30 year ago, ranking was not an issue, but gradually, it has become an issue that determines global standing. The problem we have is that we under report ourselves because nothing is attached to the ranking, so, most universities don’t take it seriously. Now that it is becoming more competitive and people are reading meaning to it, it is becoming a serious matter. From the University I came from, there is so much that is happening in terms of research every day that is not translated to industry because there is no connection between what goes on in the university and the industry. That is a problem because government has not deliberately promoted that. We leave our findings to rust on the table. 

If such a research is driven by funding and report to the agency that funds it, the agency won’t want it to go down the drain. It would look for how it will make profit from it. The federal government said recently that it will be part of factors to determine the funding of universities. I just hope we will be honest enough in terms of what you put in that determines how you are ranked.

Here, we have a committee working on that. We are a baby, we recently created a Research and Development Unit, and got a professor as a consultant. We want to identify things that are relevant to our immediate environment because if you are not relevant locally, you cannot be relevant globally. I tell my colleagues, don’t jump to publishing in high rank journals when you are not known in your locality. People are not reporting what they are doing. Currently, we can partner with our colleagues in public universities to do some investigations and benefit from TETFund activities. Also, our colleagues should tidy up their curriculum vitaes and report what they are doing. Let it be in the global space. For instance, here we pride ourselves in the quality of the nursing education we offer, in computer science, medical laboratory science and accounting. Our lecturers, guiding our students should also make themselves known to the world.

Your view on the activities of TETFund and NELFund 

The agencies are good. They have made positive contributions to education in Nigeria, especially tertiary education. I think there is no doubt about that. However, we are appealing to the federal government to let private universities also benefit from their interventions and activities. The funds they are using to execute their programmes belong to us all. It is our commonwealth. The fact that we are private institutions does not take away our inalienable rights as Nigerians. We appeal that certain  percentage of the funds be given to us and we promise that we will give account of the deliverables. 

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