Abti-American University of Nigeria: Where Does Africa’s Vision for Higher Education Get Lost?

Here is and excerpt from a paper that I wrote about Abti-American University of Nigeria (AAUN). Of course in my paper I described the condition of higher education in Africa and certain actors felt the need for a university such as AAUN and I also provided recommendations that I felt would make AAUN an institution that was more inclusive or more beneficial to the development of human capital. But for the purposes of sharing my thoughts and critiques of the establishment itself, this is what I've chosen to share in my blog. For more information on AAUN, go to their site at www.abti-american.edu.ng

Considering the original mission of African universities to become the cultivators of African development devoid of foreign influence, AAUN’s underlying structure defies these principles. It operates under the guise of preventing the brain drain, wherein thousands of students travel abroad in search of a higher education that will help them succeed. AAUN asserts that in their institution, African students are finally able to achieve a world class education without leaving West Africa. However, AAUN’s sole focus on American-style education is simply encouraging its students to seek out American (or overseas) jobs upon graduation. This is because AAUN constantly reinforces to its students that the opportunities they have made possible for them cannot be found anywhere else in Africa. AAUN asserts that American education is the highest caliber of education in the world and that in five years will be looked upon as the Harvard of Africa. How then, can students be expected to revert back to a traditional African lifestyle, when they have become accustomed to the “superior” American one? Thus human resources are being developed, but are useless to the country because they are being exported out and trends from the past, such as the brain drain, are not broken.
AAUN is not even creating opportunities of employment for its students or the community considering that 90% of its faculty and staff are American. Candidates for positions were recruited from all over the world and interviewed at American University in Washington, DC with AU management and professors , rather than in Nigeria with prominent leaders and professionals in that community. One faculty job announcement sought an Economist to teach at AAUN, where “experience in Africa or other parts of the developing world [was] a plus” , but obviously not compulsory or even expected. By constantly importing staff to serve in roles, where there are qualified African professionals available, this does not spur employment in the region and is thus ignoring a vital responsibility that African universities are expected to fulfill. African professors want to work in Africa and this tenacity has been shown though their years of dedication and service on menial and sometimes even no salaries.
AAUN also brag about their ability to restrict class sizes to eighteen students due to the ratio of faculty members to students and the vastness of their campus. However, at inception most African universities were able to do the same. Most were affiliated with universities of former colonial countries, such as is in this case, where faculty members were supplied, as well as complementary funding. However, as they attracted more students, classroom sizes inherently got larger. Unless American University is in the position to continually supplement the budget of AAUN, student fees will have to increase in order to maintain the level of standards that have been set these past two years.
The payment of student fees is also itself an issue. Even though AAUN in based in Nigeria, the fees that students pay are initially calculated in USD and then transferred to Nairas, leaving them susceptible to changes in exchange rates. One semester a student may be able to afford fees, but instability in the Nigerian economy can immediately and drastically change this making it impossible for them to continue their studies even if they have seemingly saved the necessary funds in relation to the cost of schooling the previous semester. Inherently, the inability to pay school fees, an issue that has plagued pupils throughout Africa for years, is compounded and made worse due to an unpredictable reliance on the world economy.
Nevertheless, the beauty of the campus, availability of resources, cutting edge technology, and dedication to prepare its students for the global world can not be discredited from the university. The world economic system is very competitive and largely characterized by rapid knowledge generation and technological innovation. It is vital for students to have a grasp of these talents in order to fair well against their counterparts from the West. However, these positive developments at AAUN are not being incorporated into Nigerian tradition and the Nigerian identity of students is not cultivated. They are rather being morphed into global citizens. Developments in science and technology should instead respond to the needs of the region through technological development of agricultural practices, crafts and industries, etc. so that jobs and productivity are multiplied. Consequently, AAUN pursues quality in higher education, but the type of creativity employed does not work towards solving the issues deterring Africa’s development, but America’s. Relevance of coursework can not even be seen or measured in programs that focus on the use of technology in every field (business, communication, literature, finance, and other American based curriculum) except those that are most relevant to Africa’s rural and developing communities i.e. agriculture, education, health, forestry, urban planning, etc (which are all absent at AAUN).
Overall, a serious issue with the promotion of AAUN as a premier university in Nigeria is the presumption that quality education has not and does not already exist in Nigeria. It is true that major universities, such as the University of Ibadan, are not maintaining the standards that they reached in the past, however instead of focusing on investing into an indigenous university in order to improve its academic and physical structure, a foreign structure is instead being transplanted to remedy issues in society that its administrators have not experienced. This goes against the principle that education in Africa needs to be home-grown in order to adequately address the needs of students and the community it serves. The marketing of AAUN also greatly delegitimizes historical institutions and those that have maintained indigenous patterns of knowledge. If an American styled education becomes the pride and joy of Africa, where does that leave African education? This “first-world” education subordinates African, or in this context, “third-world” education.
Ultimately, while AAUN excels in its quest for quality and creativity of higher education in Nigeria, it fails miserably in its neglect to address the important element of relevance. Students cannot be encouraged to complement their educational research with social development, when their academic leaders do not have a vested interest in the plight plaguing their community. “The truly African university must be one that draws its inspiration from its environment, not a transplanted tree, but one growing from a seed that is planted and nurtured in the African soil.”