An educationist, Prof Busari Shaamsuddeen Akande has deduced that safe environment, required skills for industries and quality supply of electricity are some of the many reasons young Nigerians and their parents are still looking towards Ghana and Togo for higher education despite high costs.
Akande, Secretary of Council of the American Chartered Institute of Management and Leadership, based in the State of Kentucky, USA, spoke in an interview with Media Talk Africa in Calabar on Sunday.
“These smaller, neighbouring countries produce young graduates with the required skills to support key industries.
“In Togo or Republic of Benin, there is no issue of strike. There is quality supply of electricity, safe environment, peaceful co-existence, tailor made specialisation of university courses.”
In his opinion, Akande said the massive size of a country does not matter when it comes to educational success.
According to him, when a country is small, it can recover faster, develop faster and make all the innovative changes faster.
He said higher institutions ought to be specialised so that students come out well skilled and specialised in their chosen fields.
“Not where graduates of law from the University of Agriculture and School of Legal Studies produce mass communicators.
“In Benin Republic, you have a university of management strictly for management sciences.”
Akande proffered ways the country can attract investors into the educational sector to make universities less reliant on the government.
He emphasised the quality of learning, the expansion of higher education through alternative financing mechanisms, paying attention to early childhood development and early reading, as some of the ways that can appeal to investors.
“The country can create awareness of culture, engage good teachers/instructors and make the educational sector accountable by promoting autonomy,” he said.
