Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah has served as chair of the Department of African American Studies at the Western Illinois University, USA and is currently the Vice-Chancellor of Kwara State University. The new institution which is the 34th state University and the 95th in the nation commences academic activities in October 2009. In this interview, he bares his mind on his vision for the university and its preparedness for eventual take-off. Na’Allah spoke to FEMI ALABI ONIKEKU in Ilorin.
Having come from an American university, some hold the view that you do not understand the Nigerian academic or administrative turf well enough to steer the affairs of the university.
It is interesting that they will ever think so because I am a product of the Nigerian educational system. I have lived here all my life, except the time I went abroad and lived abroad many years. But even as I lived abroad I continued to be a student and scholar of Nigerian culture, Nigerian tradition and a critic of the Nigerian educational system. So I do know everything that has to do not only at the tertiary level but in fact at the elementary level of the Nigerian educational system. I was trained from the grass roots to be a teacher. I had my Grade II Certificate, and Bachelor of Arts in English and Education. And I have taught all my life, since after my first degree in the University.
We are not looking at a local university. We are looking at a global university. Sometimes, to be a local educationist is probably not enough. You really need to understand what is happening in the globe. And the intention of the governor is to build a world-class university, a university that is going to produce global citizens. That I think, is one of the reasons the governing council found me qualified to do the job and the governor accepted that I was the right person to do it. It is the wish of God that I found myself here. Even thought I must acknowledge there are thousands and thousands of others that are absolutely qualified for this position.
State Universities does not pay salaries the equivalent of their federal counterparts or universities in other parts of the world. How does KWASU hope to attract top quality brains for so little?
There is no question that Kwara State is a very poor state. We can’t even begin to explain that. Everybody knows that. And that is one of the reasons ours has to be a world-class university. We are determined to attract scholars from everywhere in the world. Everything is not about money. But we are not going to be behind any university in terms of payment of staff. We are determined to be among the best.
But again, everything is not about money, everything is not about salaries. There is just so much in the university system. Talk about research, talk about grants, for instance, some professors really do more with the grant they are able to get for research than the salaries they earn. A professor may get millions of dollars, in this case, naira to do research. Whereas you ask him how much he earns and you will only talk in terms of thousands.
So I can assure you that we are going to be a world-class university, which means that resources come from all over the world. We are going to be a very competitive university in the facility to work within the university in the resources that will be coming in both from within and from outside. And also in the way we support our lecturers and equip them to deliver including the salary that we are going to pay. It is absolutely competitive. There is no question about that. I will say they should come here because they will be surprised. I want to leave it at that. They will be pleasantly surprised.
The older universities have been dogged by the problem of inadequate funding. How does KWASU intend to get around this?
The government of Kwara State has been very meticulous in ensuring for this university a very solid foundation. At least, that is the intention. And he has put in place some very solid processes to achieve that. There is, as part of the law establishing this university, a provision in which the state government, the local government and parents are all going to be contributing to the education of the students. The government especially for the next five years has mandated this. We are absolutely looking forward to every straightforward, solid, non-distribution in terms of funding.
We are also determined to launch a kind of foundation or endowment to secure the future funding viability of this university. We are not looking at just the immediate situation. We are looking really far ahead; we want a university that will be solidly autonomous in the sense that it has very strong funding. But again, it is a state university; the state will forever continue to give subventions to this university. But we don’t want to depend on the state and we will never depend on the state entirely. We have to have our own funding.
Let me give an example of my university in the United States. It is a state university, Illinois State University. Every year we receive budget from the state government. But every year the university actually spends far more from its own foundation. And every year, as part of this money that it spends, it attracts grants from all over the places. So those are the strategies that you will find around the world and those are the kinds of strategies that Kwara State University will adopt.
Isn’t KWASU a state government’s attempt to mop up its students who on account of poor results are unable to access federal universities?
Then it will have to be that every state that establishes its own university is trying to mop up and create low standards. You will almost want to say that my university, Western State University is trying to mop up. This is world practice. I went to the University of Alberta in Canada where mostly every student came from Alberta. You might want to know that our cut-off point is 200. So it has nothing to do with that. Rather, it provides additional opportunity for excellent students from the state to have opportunity for university education. As it is today, as you will agree with me that people who have excellent JAMB results are unable to enter universities because of lack of space. Many of them with 260, 250, 230 points stay two, three years struggling to enter a university. There are actually more than enough people like that.
The older universities probably said all these things you are talking about when they came on board. What does Kwara State University really hope to do differently?
I don’t know what other universities have said. We want to be a player in the world. We want to create students who will be global citizens. We want to use our world reach for community development. We want to empower our students to really develop community to create wealth in our communities. Those are the things we need and we are putting strategies in place to help us achieve that.
We are bringing instructors from all over the world. We have hired instructors from Harvard University; we’ve hired people, Nigerians and non-Nigerians. We are bringing in many Nigerians in Diaspora to teach at the university, excellent, first class scholars from Nigeria, from different parts of Nigeria, first class scholars who are absolutely competitive everywhere.
And that is number one. You have to have people to deliver. It is not even about building. It may not be as huge as some other buildings but it may just be good enough, smart enough in terms of smart classrooms to produce world-class education.
And those are the kinds of things we are doing. We are very thorough in this process. We want to lay a solid foundation. We are not rushing. For example we are starting with only 500 students. We want to do it right. We want to do it well. We are also moving at a painstaking pace and focus to make sure that everything is touched the right way and nothing is left untouched in the process of achieving this.
We are collaborating with other universities in the world. We are inviting people already, even before we started. We’ve had people visiting us from other parts of the world. It just tells you that our thinking is absolutely world class. We are focused to achieving this.
Other universities have been haunted by cultism, indecency, sexual harassment etc. How does KWASU hope to tackle these problems?
We are lucky that we are the 95th university in the nation and the 34th state university, so that we are able to learn from the experiences of the older universities. We are looking at all the crises that are actually confronting most of these universities and we are putting in place our own strategy to make sure we avoid most of them. We are very meticulous in our strategies and we are determined to make sure that we have learned from what is happening around. I want to assure you that while I will not go into details, we are very educated about what is happening.
There are worries in certain quarters that the university will not be a level playing field for the different religious and ethnic interests in the state. How would you allay these concerns?
A university, especially a public university, has to make room for everybody. That is what this university is about. It is about reaching out to communities to ensure that every part of this state is developed. If you look at the wisdom of the government in establishing this university, it has created three campuses. There is a campus at Ilesha-Baruba, there is a campus at Malete, and there is a campus at Osi-Opin. From that, it is very clear that the university is looking at the three senatorial districts of the state and therefore, mobilizing people from all over the world no matter their religion, no matter their scholarly orientation, no matter their scholarly orientation, no matter their belief. Development does not speak in the language of ethnicity, religion or division.
Are we looking at a university in isolation or are there plans for affiliations with other institution?
We are already doing that, we recently had professors who come to Kwara StateUniversity from New York University. We are looking at some areas that we might want to set up especially in the visual and performing arts, film and others. We are looking at universities disciplines. Part of what we are establishing as a university is a Centre for innovation and International Studies, which will be responsible for affiliations with universities from across the world. But we are also looking at different kinds of things at Kwara State University. But internationalization would be a major focus because we intent to be world class. That is the goal of this university. It is the number one goal, it is the number two goal, it is the number three goal of this university: world-class status.
Away from the shouts of hurray, how sustainable in the long run is the KWASU vision?
Those are the kinds of opportunities that as Vice-Chancellor are before me, opportunity to build a foundation for this university, a solid foundation for this university, a solid foundation that will stand the test of time. I totally agree with you. People go, people come and Nigerian has not been discipline enough at every level to understand that sustainability, stability, focus, all these are extremely important in order to achieve our goal. And only God knows the kind of vision Nigeria itself as nation has always set for itself ever since independence. Look at Korea today, look at Malaysia today. They were far behind Nigeria. Look at where they are today. And look at where Nigeria is despite all the goals that we set for ourselves.
We are students of history and we are lucky to come at this time. We have seen the crises, not only in the university system but in our nation. We understand clearly what our crises are and so we are learning from that, we are developing policies, very carefully develop policies. We are not waiting until later. But we are implementing right now.
For example, in our process to recruit instructors, we are saying you must demonstrate ability to teach. You must give a scholarly research as part of the interview. We want to see you deliver before your peers, before your superiors in the academia who will be able to give judgment. We are going to get national and international opinion about his scholarship by sending them for peer review. So we are very thorough even at this point. And we are going for nothing but the best. We are not compromising on that. So that tells you that we are slowly laying that foundation so that when this crop of excellent world scholars comes together, they know this is the practice. They will continue with this. And I can assure you that by the time its two years, three years, this becomes a tradition for the university. Everybody knows this is what we do here.
The crisis in the Nigerian system is that things change too often. Nobody follows the law. So I, in the next five years, hope to make sure that the foundation is solid. And especially when you enter into partnership with the world, you know it is going to cost you a lot.
Part of the crisis in Nigeria is that some world scholars are unable to come because they don’t know when the semester is starting again. And so those are the kinds of crises we will try to avoid, by partnering with the world. We have to ensure stability. It is going to be in the interest of the university to continue to maintain that solid foundation.
