University Education and Nation-Building in Nigeria, 1948–2000

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

University Education and Nation-Building in Nigeria, 1948–2000 University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2011 The Politics of Access: University Education and Nation-Building in Nigeria, 1948–2000 Anyanwu, Ogechi Emmanuel University of Calgary Press Anyanwu, Ogechi Emmanuel, "The politics of access: university education and nation-building in Nigeria, 1948-2000". Series: Africa: missing voices series 9, University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/48740 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca University of Calgary Press www.uofcpress.com THE POLITICS OF ACCESS: UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AND NATION-BUILDING IN NIGERIA, 1948–2000 by Ogechi Emmanuel Anyanwu ISBN 978-1-55238-580-7 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university purchase a print copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] Cover Art: The artwork on the cover of this book is not open access and falls under traditional copyright provisions; it cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. The cover can be displayed as a complete cover image for the purposes of publicizing this work, but the artwork cannot be extracted from the context of the cover of this specific work without breaching the artist’s copyright. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This open-access work is published under a Creative Commons licence. This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display or perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to its authors and publisher, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form, and that you in no way alter, transform, or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without our express permission. If you want to reuse or distribute the work, you must inform its new audience of the licence terms of this work. For more information, see details of the Creative Commons licence at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ UNDER THE CREATIVE UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE YOU COMMONS LICENCE YOU MAY: MAY NOT: • read and store this document • gain financially from the work in any way; free of charge; • sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution • distribute it for personal use of the work; free of charge; • use the work in any commercial activity of any kind; • print sections of the work for • profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution of the work; personal use; • distribute in or through a commercial body (with the exception • read or perform parts of the of academic usage within educational institutions such as work in a context where no schools and universities); financial transactions take • reproduce, distribute, or store the cover image outside of its place. function as a cover of this work; • alter or build on the work outside of normal academic scholarship. Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org/content/view/17/33/ Notes Introduction 1 Wood to Halliday, 24 July 1854, Wood Social Value of American Higher Education Papers, India Board: Letter Book, vol. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977). 4 (Wood Papers at the India Office 5 Martin Trow, Problems in the Transition Library, London), cited in Suresh from Elite to Mass Higher Education Chandra Ghosh, “The Genesis of (Berkeley, CA: Carnegie Commission Curzon’s University Reform: 1899– on Higher Education, 1973). See also 1905,” Minerva 26, no.4 (December Earl J. MacGrath, ed., Universal Higher 1988): 463–92. Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2 Eric Ashby, Universities: British, Indian, 1966). African: A Study in the Ecology of Higher 6 Ernest Renan, “Qu’est-ce qu’une Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard nation?” In Nationalism, ed. John University Press, 1966), 224. Hutchinson and Anthony Smith 3 H.A. Oluwasanmi, “The Preservation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, of Intellectual Freedom and Cultural 1994), 17. Integrity” (paper presented at a 7 Emile Durkheim, The Evolution of symposium on The Role of the University Educational Thought: Lectures on the in a Post-Colonial World, Duke Formation and Development of Secondary University, Durham, North Carolina, Education in France, trans. P. Collins 11–13 April 1975), 5. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 4 Great Britain, Committee on Higher 1977), 167. Education, Higher Education: Report 8 The Development of Higher Education of the Committee Appointed by the Prime in Africa: Report of the Conference on Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord Development of Higher Education in Robbins, 1961–63 (London: HMSO, Africa, Tananarive, 3–12 September 1963), para. 31. See also H.R. Bowen, 1962 (Paris: UNESCO, 1963), 12. Investing in Learning: The Individual and 9 Richard Sklar, “Political Science and National Integration – A Radical 225 Approach,” Journal of Modern African 20 See “The Dawn of National Studies 5, no. 1 (1967): 2. Reconciliation,” Gowon’s Victory Message to the Nation, Broadcast from 10 James S. Coleman and Carl G. Lagos, 15 January 1970, http://dawodu. Roseberg, Political Parties and National com/gowon3.htm (accessed 19 May Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: 2006), 3. University of California Press, 1964), 8–9. 21 Frederick Harbison and C.A. Myers, Education, Manpower and Economic 11 E.E. Osaghae, Structural Adjustment and Growth (New York: McGraw-Hill, Ethnicity in Nigeria (Uppsala: Nordic 1964); Frederick Harbison, “The African African Institute, 1995), 11. See also O. University and Human Resource Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria (Enugu: Development,” Journal of Modern African Forth Dimension, 1978). Studies 3, no. 1 (1965): 53–62. 12 Sklar, “Political Science and National 22 Harbison, “The African University,” 53. Integration,” 6. 23 Harbison, “The African University”; 13 Emile Durkheim, Education and T.W. Schultz, Investment in Human Sociology, trans. Sherwood D. Fox (New Capital (New York: Free Press, 1971); A. York: Free Press, 1956), 65. Sakamota and P.A. Powers, “Education 14 Ibid., 70. and the Dual Labour Market for 15 Ibid. Japanese Men,” American Sociological Review 60, no. 22 (1995): 222–46; G. 16 J.T. Saunders, University College Ibadan Psacharopoulos and M. Woodhall, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Education for Development: An Analysis Press, 1960), 194. of Investment Choice (New York: Oxford 17 Inter-University Commission, Report University Press, 1997). of Visitation to University College Ibadan 24 A. Fagerlind and L.J. Saha, Education (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1952), and National Developments (New Delhi: 4. Reed, 1997). 18 Editorial, Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, Kaduna, 25 Psacharopoulos and Woodhall, 18 February 1950, cited in Report on the Education for Development, 102. For Kano Disturbances of May 1953 (Kaduna: more information, see D.A Olaniyan Northern Regional Government, 1953), and T. Okemakinde, “Human Capital 43. Theory: Implications for Educational 19 B.A. Fafunwa, A History of Nigerian Development,” Pakistan Journal of Social Higher Education (Lagos: Macmillan, Sciences 5, no. 5 (2008): 479–83. 1971); Vincent Ike, University 26 For detailed information on European Development in Africa: The Nigerian system of education, see Florian Experience (Ibadan: Oxford University Znaniecki, The Social Role of the Man Press, 1976); Nduka Otonti, Western of Knowledge (New York: Columbia Education and the Nigerian Cultural University Press, 1940) and José Ortega Background (Ibadan: Oxford University Y Gasset, Mission of the University Press, 1964); Nduka Okafor, The (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Development of Universities in Nigeria: A 1944). Study of the Influence of Political and Other Factors on University Development in 27 K.A. Busia, Purposeful Education for Nigeria, 1868–1967 (London: Longman, Africa (The Hague: Mouton, 1968). 1971). 226 THE POLITICS OF ACCESS 28 Eric Ashby, African Universities and 38 Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us Western Tradition (Cambridge, MA: (New York: Random House, 1974), 322. Harvard University Press, 1964), 31. 39 “Message from the Hon. Aja Nwachuku, 29 J.F. Ajayi and T.N. Tamuno, eds., The Minister of Education, Federal University of Ibadan, 1948-1973 (Ibadan: Government of Nigeria,” West African Ibadan University Press, 1973), 293–97. Journal of Education 1, no. 1 (February 1959): 1. 30 See Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, A History of Nigerian Higher Education (Lagos: 40 Sudan, a British colony, regained Macmillan, 1971), 19–20. independence in 1956 and refused to join the British Commonwealth of Nations. 31 World Bank, The African Capacity Britain did not want Nigeria to take Building Initiative: Towards Improved similar action. Policy Analysis and Development (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1991). 41 Carnegie Corporation of New York, I.D, 1, “Carnegie Corporation and the World 32 T.O. Eisemon, The Science Profession in Scene,” Policy and Program, 1947–1955, the Third World: Studies from India and n.d. The Carnegie Corporation’s files Kenya (New York: Praeger, 1982). used in this book are located in the 33 Development of Higher Education in Rare Book and Manuscript Library Africa, 11. in Columbia University. They are 34 The conference urged African countries hereinafter cited as CCNY. to uphold the university’s traditional 42 Ibid. role of “giving a broad liberal education” 43 Under the BDC program, established in addition to reflecting “the needs of in the 1920s, Carnegie earmarked $10 the African world by providing African million to provide educational assistance society with men and women equipped to British colonies around the world.
Recommended publications
  • Journal of Modern European Languages and Literature (JMEL) Volume 12 July 2019 ISSN: 978-978-48450-4-5 (Online & Print)
    Journal of Modern European Languages and Literature (JMEL) Volume 12 July 2019 ISSN: 978-978-48450-4-5 (Online & Print) PROFESSOR KENNETH ONWUKA DIKE 1917-1983: FATHER OF MODERN AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY BY Nwosu Chukwuemeka Ph.D Senior Lecturer Email : [email protected] Department Of History/International Studies Imo State University, P.M.B 2000, Owerri The Prolegomena African historians1, professional training and ingenuity, indeed put them in a position to promote through our writings and teachings, the forces that may stimulate our people towards pressing forward the emergence of a truly Nigerian nation-state as well as nation-building. Professor Dike has contended that writing: Is a great labour of love… the process of writing is like giving birth to a child because you are creating, so to speak; you are bringing something new to the world in terms of ideal2. Thus, one of the major threats before the current crop of Nigerian historians, particularly at this point in time, is the inability of a sizeable proportion to intensify researches, and publications, unlike the ‘old order’ historians such as K. O. Dike, AdieleAfigbo, Jacob F. Ade-Ajayi, E. A. Ayandele, ChiekaIfemesia, J. C. Anene, ObaroIkime, Saburi Biobaku, Ebiegberi J. Alagoa, Walter Ofonagoro and Gabriel O. Olusanya- just to mention but a few, with a view towards promoting a better inter- group harmony, peace, general understanding as well as appreciation of one another’s culture among our people for nation-building. Where researches and publications abound, historians would have succeeded in galvanising both the government and our people towards forging a better Nigerian nation-state given the fact that it is a multi-ethnic society or heterogenous in character.
    [Show full text]
  • The Policies and Politics of Massification of University Education in Nigeria, 1952-2000
    THE POLICIES AND POLITICS OF MASSIFICATION OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA, 1952-2000 Ogechi Emmanuel Anyanwu A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2006 Committee: Apollos O. Nwauwa, Advisor Kefa M. Otiso Graduate Faculty Representative Robert Buffington Lillian Ervine Ashcraft-Eason © 2006 Ogechi Emmanuel Anyanwu All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Apollos O. Nwauwa, Advisor This study constitutes a history of the policies and politics surrounding the massification of university education in Nigeria between 1952 and 2000. The concept of massification as used in this study refers to a program of expansion of facilities and mass access to university education in post-independent Nigeria. In 1948, the British colonial administration in Nigeria established the first university, the University College of Ibadan (UCI). However, from 1948 through 1959, the British consistently ignored the growing demand for more access to university education. To address this problem, the Nigerian government set up the Ashby Commission to study the country’s higher education needs on the eve of independence. Following the report of the Commission, the Nigerian government realigned university education policies and vigorously embarked on policies of massification. This study shows that the policies and politics of massification were embarked upon largely in response to the critical needs for human resources, economic development, and national integration. Furthermore, it examines how the divergent and, sometimes, inconsistent interests of the pluralistic society of Nigeria, the politics of oil revenue and state creation, the ideologies of civilian/military governments and international forces shaped policy initiatives, shifts, and outcomes of massification.
    [Show full text]
  • A Model for the Administration and Control of Public Education in the East Central State of Nigeria
    Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1975 A Model for the Administration and Control of Public Education in the East Central State of Nigeria Martin Umachi Okoro Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Okoro, Martin Umachi, "A Model for the Administration and Control of Public Education in the East Central State of Nigeria" (1975). Master's Theses. 2798. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/2798 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1975 Martin Umachi Okoro A MODEL FOR THE ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE EAST CENTRAL STATE OF NIGERIA by Martin Umachi Okoro A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School of Loyola University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts October 1974 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer wishes to express his sincere thanks and profound gratitude to all those who have contributed in any small way to make the investigat~on possible. Special.thanks must first go to my academic advisor, Dr. J. J. Valenti, who closely supervised and encouraged me during the course of this study, and secondly to Dr. R. Monks, whose patience, warmth and suggestions inspired me to complete the research.
    [Show full text]
  • Nigeria's University
    NOTES CHAPTER 1 1. University Herald (hereafter UH) 1:1 (1948). 2. Kenneth Mellanby, The Birth of Nigeria’s University (London, 1958), 59. 3. Southern Nigeria Defender (hereafter SND), 4 February 1948. 4. SND, 5 February 1948. 5. West African Pilot (hereafter WAP), 9 February 1948. 6. SND, 12 February 1949. 7. A.B. Aderibigbe and T.G.O. Gbadamosi (eds.), A History of the University of Lagos, 1962–1987 (Lagos, 1987); J.F. Ade Ajayi and T.N. Tamuno (eds.), The University of Ibadan 1948–73: A History of the First Twenty-Five Years (Ibadan, 1973); Abdullahi Mahadi (ed.), A History of Ahmadu Bello University, 1962–1987 (Zaria, 1989); B.A. Mojuetan (ed.), Ibadan at Fifty, 1948–1998: Nigeria’s Premier University in Perspective (Ibadan, 2000); E. Obiechina, C. Ike and J.A. Umeh (eds.), The University of Nigeria 1960–85: An Experiment in Higher Education (Nsukka, 1986); Olufemi Omosini and ’Biodun Adediran (eds.), Great Ife: A History of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 1962–1987 (Ile-Ife, 1989). 8. Eric Ashby, Universities: British, Indian, African. A Study in the Ecology of Higher Education, with Mary Anderson (London, 1966), 147–8; Nduka Okafor, The Development of Universities in Nigeria (London, 1971), 2. 9. The ‘west’ and the ‘western world’ are problematic terms that misleadingly imply a homogenous, clearly bounded region that has been seen as the cradle of modernity. The term ‘western education’ is used here to refer to forms of © The Author(s) 2017 183 T. Livsey, Nigeria’s University Age, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56505-1 184 NOTES education with roots in the west, although western education has a lengthy genealogy that has involved interactions between geographical regions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Contemporary Crises in Higher Education in Nigeria: a Consequence of Fundamental Political Manipulations of the Educational System (Military and Civilian Era)
    Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.3 Publication Date: Mar. 25, 2020 DoI:10.14738/assrj.73.7893. Harry, C. I. (2020). The Politics In Higher Education: The Contemporary Crises In Higher Education In Nigeria: A Consequence Of Fundamental Political Manipulations Of The Educational System (Military And Civilian Era). Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(3) 203-210. The Politics In Higher Education: The Contemporary Crises In Higher Education In Nigeria: A Consequence Of Fundamental Political Manipulations Of The Educational System (Military And Civilian Era) Dr. (Mrs) Celestina Imade Harry Senior Lecturer (History And Policy Of Education), Department Of Educational Foundations, Faculty Of Education, University Of Port Harcourt, Choba. ABSTRACT The Politics in Higher Education: The contemporary Crises in Higher Education in Nigeria is a consequence of fundamental political manipulations of the educational system – at both the federal and state levels. The government did not take the economy of the country into consideration. This had now made almost all the institutions of higher education of learning in Nigeria to face the financial constraints. For instance look at the specialized Universities of Agriculture at Abeokuta and Makurdi and the Faculties of Science and Technology in Nigerian universities are all facing the same financial problems as the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences. Furthermore, libraries in most higher institutions of learning today are ill-equipped. Therefore, establishing higher institutions here and there without maintaining the already existing ones is not in the best interest for national development. INTRODUCTION The background of politics and higher education started right from the colonial era, during this time it was the opinion of some elite that even if the colonial government were to establish full universities some fundamental questions had to be answered.
    [Show full text]
  • Themaking of a Colonial University in Nigeria
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Leeds Beckett Repository Imagining an Imperial Modernity: Universities and the West African Roots of Colonial Development Tim Livsey, King’s College London During the late 1940s, new universities opened across the British colonial empire. In the years 1948 and 1949, universities were founded in Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Uganda, the West Indies, and Malaya (Malaysia). These new institutions fascinated contemporaries. The local press saw the inauguration of University College Ibadan in Nigeria in epochal terms. According to the Southern Nigeria Defender, it marked Nigeria’s entry into the ‘the University age’ (12 February 1949). The universities were often perceived, by the British and colonised peoples alike, as a step towards eventual self-government. They would educate new elites that would one day lead independent nations, and drive the economic and social development of these territories. Indeed, the new universities were part of broader schemes of colonial development, a defining feature of late colonialism in the British and other European empires. They were part-financed by Colonial Development and Welfare funds designated by the British government, but have rarely been considered by historians of British colonial development.1 Nevertheless, the late colonial universities were the predecessors of the ‘capacity building’ schemes of present day international development.2 The debates around their foundation form an important, but often overlooked, part of the genealogy of contemporary discussions about the nature and purpose of African universities.3 This article asks how and why these universities were created, and what their foundation suggests about colonial development more generally.
    [Show full text]
  • The Athens of West Africa: International Education at Fourah Bay College, 1814-2002
    Southeastern Regional Seminar in African Studies (SERSAS) Spring 2002 SERSAS Conference 22 - 23 March 2002 Georgia State Univers ity The Athens of West Africa: International Education at Fourah Bay College, 1814-2002 Danial J. Paracka, Jr., Assistant Director The International Center of Kennesaw State Uni versity Kennesaw, Georgia, USA [email protected] Copyright © 2001 by SERSAS and Dan Paracka All Rights Reserved Fourah Bay pioneered the modern concept in which universities were not only seats of learning for a particular country but were instruments for fostering friendship and understanding among the peoples of the world.[1] This paper is about Fourah Bay College (FBC) and its role as an institution of higher learning in both its African and international context. The study traces the College's development through periods of missionary education (1816-1876), colonial education (1876-1938), and development education (1938-2001). This work distinguishes the individual accomplishments of FBC students, faculty, and alumni from the constraints of a rather narrow curriculum and chronically under-funded institution. FBC was known as the "Athens of West Africa" due to a strong focus within its curriculum on learning Greek and Latin and because of the success of its graduates at home and abroad.[2] The text most often employed for the study of Greek was the Greek New Testament. Founded by the Anglican Church, FBC was not a secular college. Students studied to become priests and catechists and helped spread Christianity throughout West Africa. It is the oldest Western- styled College in Africa.[3] FBC was a European institution transported and situated in West Africa valued for its traditional Western academic focus and Christian character.
    [Show full text]
  • Durham E-Theses
    Durham E-Theses The language of West African writing in English with special reference to Nigerian prose ction. Young, Peter How to cite: Young, Peter (1969) The language of West African writing in English with special reference to Nigerian prose ction., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7959/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 AGEMOVMGEMENTS In the course of this research and the travelling that was necessary to gather scattered material many people have helped me through discussion and the tracing of some of the more difficult West African publications. I am especially grateful to my supervisors, Professor E,D. Jones of Fourah Bay College and Mr. Peter Faulkner of the University of Durham. Without their advice and encouragement this study would not have reached its present stage.
    [Show full text]
  • Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew Partners : the Contributions of British Architects to Built Environment in Colonial
    269 Abiodun Akeem Oladiti / Dorcas Oluwaseyi Adeoye / Ajibade Samuel Idowu* Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew Partners: The Contributions of British Architects to Built Environment in Colonial Nigeria, 1946 ‑1959 RESUMO Este artigo analisa as contribuições de dois arquitetos britânicos, Maxwell Fry e Jane Drew no desenvolvimento da construção urbana na Nigéria após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ele analisa o desenvolvimento histórico do espaço público da Nigéria no que diz respeito à modernização das infra ‑estruturas, como bancos, escolas, escolas de formação de professores e a universidade como apoios à administração colonial na Nigéria. A agitação dos nacionalistas e a reconstrução pós ‑guerra facilitou e encorajou o império britânico no desenvolvimento de estruturas construtivas adequadas ao ambiente. Isto, em grande medida, influenciou a arquitectura nigeriana e o espaço construído. As linhas orientadoras do design deram lugar a espaços institucionais funcionais marcados por uma estética híbrida, entre a construção modernista e a influência colonial. O documento conclui que os projetos de Fry e Drew representam um marco e deram um contributo significativo para o desenvolvimento do espaço urbano construído na Nigéria colonial. Palavras ‑chave: Arquitetura; Britânico; Colonial; Ambiente; Nigéria. ABSTRACT This paper examines the contributions of two British architects, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in the development of built environment in Nigeria after World War II. It analyses the historical development of the built environment in Nigeria’s public space with respect to modernize infrastructures such as banks, schools, teachers training colleges and the university needed in support of the colonial administration in Nigeria. The agitation of the nationalists and postwar reconstruction facilitated and encouraged the British Empire to develop the edifice or structures that would be suitable for the environment.
    [Show full text]