Birthday Lecture In Honour of His Excellency, SIR, CHIEF, DR. GABRIEL OSAWARU I G B I N E D I O N GCKB, D.LITT, MIT, CFR THE HONORARY ROMANIAN CONSUL TO EDO AND DELTA STATES OF NIGERIA, THE ESAMA OF BENIN KINGDOM, HONORABLE CHANCELLOR, AND VISITOR, IGBINEDION UNIVERSITY, OKADA T: GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA Delivered by DR. IBRAHIM HASSAN DANKWAMBO PhD, FCCA, FCA, OON FORMER EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR, GOMBE STATE & THE TALBAN OF GOMBE 10:00am 3RD SEPTEMBER, 2020 IUO LIBRARY CONFERENCE HALL GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA Delivered by DR. IBRAHIM HASSAN DANKWAMBO PhD, FCCA, FCA, OON FORMER EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR, GOMBE STATE & THE TALBAN OF GOMBE GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA BY DR. IBRAHIM HASSAN DANKWAMBO, B.Sc, MBA, M.Sc, PhD, FCCA, FCA, OON FORMER EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR, GOMBE STATE & THE TALBAN OF GOMBE VISITING PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING, IGBINEDION UNIVERSITY,OKADA. VISITING SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING, UNIVERSITY OF BENIN,BENIN CITY, NIGERIA. BEING BIRTHDAY LECTURE OF HIS EXCELLENCY, SIR, CHIEF (DR.) GABRIEL OSAWARU IGBINEDION THE ESAMA OF BINI KINGDOM AND THE HONOURABLE CHANCELLOR OF IGBINEDION UNIVERSITY, OKADA, EDO STATE, NIGERIA ON HIS 86TH BIRTHDAY Protocols To be invited to deliver the 86th Birthday Lecture of this distinguished and illustrious Son of Africa, His Excellency Sir Chief (Dr.) Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, the Esama of Bini Kingdom is indeed to me, a unique privilege and an honour. I thank the authorities of the Igbinedion University especially The Chancellor, Pro-Chancellor and the Governing Council, Vice Chancellor, Senate and Congregation, the Academic community, the Administrative staff and all the students of this university for this recognition, I am deeply honoured to have been invited to join you on this auspicious occasion of the 86th Birthday Celebration of the Esama of the Universe of Igbinedion University Okada. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by paying special tributes to those who served this university in one way or the other in the past and have bequeathed to us a university we can be proud of in Nigeria today. The great visionaries led by Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, the Esama of Bini Kingdom, who happened to be the celebrant today and the founder of this great citadel of learning and inquiry, deserve our strong commendations and praise. It is on account of their farsightedness and resilience in the early difficult days of the establishment of the University that we have today, a University that has proved that it can produce the best people and the most innovative ideas. We also owe a priceless debt of gratitude to the distinguished scholars and faculty of this great University. Men and women of enormous talents who, despite all the challenges of funding and infrastructure, produce excellent research works daily and year after year, turn out men and women who are equipped with the best resource a man or woman can have, which is relevant knowledge of both in and of the 21st Century. I congratulate members of the University academia Committee who in their discretion decided to invite me to deliver the 86th Lecture of the founder of the great first or pioneer private University in Nigeria. As a believer in metaphysics, my invitation is an augury that this your celebration will not only be successful, but will be like no other one before it for good. The Birthday Lecture is really not an academic liturgy per se. Selecting who to speak to mixed audience as it is really expected in an occasion like this is equally an academic ritual of some sorts and in some ways indeed. To our Vice Chancellor, I am truly honoured and thank you very much. 2.0 As an Alumni of this great premier private University, I also consider my invitation as a call to duty, not only a casual one, but a moment of paying back. In the last 20 years plus, the University with the support of its founding father Chief Gabriel Onsawaru Igbinedion, the Esama of Benin Kingdom, has contributed to all the sectors of Nigerian economy, at a time the University, offered the best and was the best in Medical sciences, Business and Management sciences, etc., and the impact was not only in Nigeria but indeed globally. Today's lecture is captured “Globalization and the Future of Tertiary Education in Nigeria”. The choice of this Birthday Lecture topic is quite deliberate and highly instructed. First, the celebrant is an international business colossus, great patriot, educationalist, philanthropist and pathfinder. He has been operating businesses at a global level for several decades before the concept and issue of globalization began to gain worldwide attention. He, in a way, is a globalized person including marriage. Aside from him taking foreign wives which is a social globalization, he also encouraged his children to follow suit. Time will not permit me to elaborate on this. Secondly, the celebrant is an educationist with stray base at the 3 tier levels of education. Montessori/Pre-primary, Primary, Secondary and then Tertiary. The Igbinedion Montessori is a globalized educational service institution. In order to do justice to the topic of this lecture, there is first and foremost the need to situate tertiary education in Nigeria within our current realities, paying particular attention to the challenges they face in meeting the identified reasons for their creation. The impact of globalization on the institutions and how they are coping are examined. Finally, what is expected of the institutions in a globalized economy and how to meet such expectations are copiously highlighted. These issues are discussed in the various sections of this lecture. 3.0 State of Tertiary Education in Nigeria Education is critical for long- term success of any nation especially developing ones like Nigeria. The country's ability to stay competitive in a knowledge driven-world is dependent on the development of the right skills at different levels of human endeavors. At the moment, the challenge of doing this is quite immense because Nigeria is decades behind in the provision of ideal environment for the development of required skills (Federal Ministry of Education, 2012).. Nigeria with an estimated population of close to 200 million people (Current Estimates) has an asset that can move the country forward by galvanizing other sectors of the economy. However, this large population is at the moment considered a liability or time bomb and can only be truly an asset if nurtured through quality education which is now the key index for measuring development globally. A cursory look at Nigerian educational policy will further illuminate the issues. 3.1 Nigerian Educational Policies This is discussed under four (a – d) subsections below. a. Under Colonial Era The amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria by the Sir Lord Lugard Colonial administration of 1914 saw the emergence of Educational policies at the pleasure of the ruling government. The expansion of policies to accommodate citizen's views and ideas in Nigeria began in 1944 as a fall out of nationalist movement. The struggle by the founding fathers led to the promulgation of the first education law for the entire country; the Educational Ordinance of 1948 which allowed regional governments to administer education according to their peculiarities (Imam, 2012). b. Educational Policies at Independence The policy at independence focused on replacement of British administrators with the indigenous manpower especially in schools and the civil service (Woolman, 2001). The first indigenous National Policy on Education in Nigeria was launched in 1977 with a clear mandate to correct all the social imbalances created by the colonial policies and then transform the nation morally, socially and scientifically geared towards self-realization and national unity. Education was viewed as a social service and investment in manpower needed for economic transformation was to be given top priority by the government.The infrastructural inadequacy and high level of underdevelopment in Nigeria was to be addressed by the 1977 policy. In order to achieve the objectives, the policy made education in Nigeria the Federal Government's responsibility in terms of centralized control and funding. The unique feature of the policy was the imitation of 6-3-3-4 educational system modeled after the American system. c. Educational Policies under Civilian Administration The 1979 Constitution necessitated the revision of the educational policy to conform to the democratic principles and the ruling party's manifesto (National Party of Nigeria NPN). Some of the provisions of the revised policy were the introduction of compulsory Universal Primary Education (UPE) and prescription that every Nigerian child is encouraged to learn at least one of the three major indigenous languages of Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979). The Civilian Administration launched the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Scheme with the aim of reducing the illiteracy level to the lowest minimum and jack up Nigerians' ability to read and write to 70% by 2003 (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999). It also aimed at using education to address problem of mutual suspicion and distrust among the citizens thereby fostering unity and national integration devoid of prejudice hitherto associated with previous policies. d. The Current Policy The current Nigeria Education policy is the revised fourth edition which captures the interest of children recognized