February 17, 2025

Unilagsun

Serving the university community

Piloting a University in a Period of National Challenges

It has now been over two years since Professor Folasade Ogunsola became the first female Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG). In an interview with UNILAG Sun reporters, Blessing Famose, Daniel Nnamani, Precious Okwun, Peace Chenube, and Daniel Aderinto, she discusses the challenges of leading the institution during difficult economic times.

It’s now two years since you assumed office. What have been your challenges since you joined the office?

Nigeria happened to me as the Vice-Chancellor, and I think to any Vice-Chancellor during this period. We all come in with a vision of what we want to do, an assumption of what costs would be like, and how we will achieve it. Then fuel subsidy happens. Spiralling inflation happens. Electricity moves to band A. All those things become extremely challenging. In many ways, we thought last year would be the worst year, because last year, we had to increase prices, even though we did not increase it to the level that we needed. 

So it’s still highly subsidised. There is a general belief that somebody is paying for the education. Nobody is paying. I mean, the government tries but they give us capital. They don’t give us the recurrents, which is the heaviest part. They help us with buildings, but nobody gives us money to run it. 

We have to find money to pay the electricity bills, it is not coming from anywhere. I’m not complaining; I’m just being realistic. The government supports a little, but it’s not enough to cover what we have to do. We have to keep the university clean and all those things, we have to take care of them.

Running the university really became challenging for all of us, not just the University of Lagos. As you know, some universities didn’t have light for two, three, six months, some had to be bailed out because there was just not enough finances to take care of the university. We were quite triggered but we managed to overcome last year.

I think the challenge has been the uncertain financial terrain in Nigeria which happened to families and happened to the university. As it was happening to families, it was happening here. It was tough and we had to think outside the box, we also had to do a number of other things.


But I think we managed and we’re still standing. We were shut down for electricity for about two days and our pro-chancellor came to me. We had meetings. It is not that we had solved the debt problem, but we had meetings that allowed us to spread the debts. 


So what would I say have been the challenges? The uncertain financial terrain. The lack of electricity and the cost of everything has been a challenge. Without being able to commensurate the increasing cost, we had an explosive expenditure without actually doing more. We were cutting down on costs, but we were spending more on less.

So I think we survived it and we’re hoping that next year will be better. I’m an optimist. If we survived 2023 and 2024, I don’t know what 2025 can bring, but we’ll survive.

Amidst these challenges, what will you point out as your most significant achievements?
I think quite a lot of things I would talk about are abstract. When I use the word “abstract,” they’re not buildings, they are things that would improve academia for students.

We did FASU. How we did that is another story, but we did a great FASU. Until we did it, we didn’t know how we would finance it. That was hairy, but we landed on our feet. It was a pretty decent FASU game, and we got support for that. A lot of what we’ve done improves academia for students, positioning them for the 21st century.

So we’ve done a lot of things you won’t see, in terms of expanding our Wi-Fi, to make data access easier. We’ve worked a lot on increasing and improving internships by working with industry so that you {students} are more fit for purpose. One of the greatest complaints is students are not employable, so there’s been quite a bit of engagement with industry to be part of the curriculum development.

Then we spent quite a bit in terms of renovation of the hostels. My belief is you cannot talk of gentlemen and ladies when living in a pig sty. It is not possible. The old hostels were in a terrible state. I’ve been in many of them, and honestly, it is appalling. We were always doing repairs, but it was always little patches. What you find is that within a few months of the students being back in there, everything is destroyed again, so it does not even seem as if anybody is doing anything.

That was something we decided that we were going to do. In the first year, we did Mariere and then we got funding from TechHub to do the remaining. Unfortunately, when you’re working with government money, you can’t plan, you do your part and then you wait for the government to give you the money.

We were hoping that the money would come in July so that as we are finishing school we start. It didn’t. But when it came, we knew we had to make a very quick decision because the spiral in inflation means that if you do not use that money now, it will be useless by next year.

Within a month of anything, for most of our projects, we are having to re-scope and re-do, because the change in the cost of building materials is so rapid that if you leave any money, it becomes useless. So we had to decide to do these hostels. It’s a tough decision, but I always take the long view, not the short-term view, because, at the end of the day, I’m more interested in making sure that those hostels are done. 


There’s no time that we want to do it, that people will not be inconvenienced because there’s no time, that the university is totally empty. So if you don’t just empty it, you can’t do it. Some of them are ready. Some are not ready yet, and we’re talking with the contractors to try and make sure that they are ready as soon as possible.

We have also got quite a number of things you will see coming up. They’re not finished. There’s a sports hostel because we’re moving into a sports academy. The sports hostel has reached the decking stage. 

Then we’ve also got UNDP. I was hoping would be done by December. They’re setting up an AI hub here. We’ve already done the commissioning, but they say that probably by March or April that will be complete. We’ve got the UBA building. That should be ready by mid-year. Then we have a collaboration with America. The United States, a window on America. That will soon be finished. It’s a cultural centre. It’s also a place for reading.

Then you know that we’ve finished the Learning Commons. One of the things we’ve also worked on is making places student-friendly. We’re renovating the bookshop. Then we’re also working on other spaces. We have the Learning Commons here, a place where students can feel comfortable to go in. You can browse. We’re also working on some sitting areas for students. There’ll be Wi-Fi and things like that. We recently commissioned the BOIS Building for the Biological Sciences. So a lot is going on.

Some of them are in different stages. And then today we commissioned electric vehicles for transportation which will significantly bring down the cost of transportation across the campus as well as zero-emission. 

We’ve also done things around academia in unbundling some courses. Creative Arts will soon be taken out of the Faculty of Arts. It has already been approved. Part of that is also that we already have a donor who’s going to give us a building for them.

We’re partnering with other people. In some of the faculties, you’ll start to see the things that are being done. If you go to Education, you’ll see that they’ve bought things for students to use. The labs are being renovated. The Faculty of Arts has started its Language Lab. We’ve got a donor to support them. 

Studios will be there. We have Quality Assurance going around to make sure that some of these things start to show up. Many of them are just beginning to put things in. So it’s a transition phase. But I’m sure that within two years, three years, it will be a solid thing. Because once you start change it’s not perfect overnight. It takes a while for it to expand. I think everybody’s getting used to it. Both the lecturers and students.

Your administration is centred on the FUTURE agenda. How far have you gone in the implementation of this agenda? 

The future-ready agenda is a mix of many things. Some of what I’ve said is part of it. We’re going more green. But a lot of it is also about mindsets and employability. We have also started a career support centre. We’re very big on making sure that people are using the hubs. That means the creation of awareness.

But it’s really how we make students ready for this uncertain future. One thing we’re very sure of is that whatever we’re teaching you here now is not enough. The change going on is so rapidly that unless you have a type of thinking and you’re open to other things, It will be difficult. The kind of changes going on requires a new mind.

Now there are two components to that; students and staff. We’re doing quite a lot of retraining of staff. Because we’re focused on also investing in staff. My belief is if you don’t invest in staff, then the students don’t benefit. Look at it like a hospital. If you want patients to get well, invest in the doctors and the nurses.

What people have been doing is they’re always investing in the students, and forget the staff. Students are one-off. Once you’ve taken it, you’ve gone. It’s the staff that if you invest in them, every student coming in is going to benefit from the improvement in the staff. 

We’re doing quite a bit around staff development as well. Some of that has required us to partner with some institutions abroad. There’s a staff development centre that’s been started and we’re partnering with Warwick. The group that will be moving that forward have started their training.

That’s why I said a lot of things I don’t think you will see yet, but it’s going on. And let me put it this way. It is easier when you do buildings. Everybody can see a building.  But how do you see investments in training?

We’re very determined that the investment in the labs will show up. The investment in unbundling some courses so that they can be free to grow will happen. I’ve just mentioned some and there are others that we’ve done. And then we’ve brought in more industry and more international figures.

You described last year as a year of sowing seeds. How would you describe the growth of these seeds?

For quite a number of them, we’ve seen them happening. I think the challenge, as I said, is the general economy. In fact, the economy is not so much the problem as the impact it has had on the people.

Everybody’s tired. So things that people would embrace and run with, you have to pet them. Everybody’s angry. It has had its effect on some of these things, but they’re moving. I was hoping some of them would move faster, but some have moved.

So what you’re hoping is that you have people who as we are moving with them, are taking the challenge and running. One of the things we wanted is for our students to do more things. We wanted students to be involved with SMEDAN so that you’re solving their problems. Because really the future is about people who think of problem-solving.

So we partnered with SMEDAN. We also had interactions with Silco, but it’s not enough for students to go for SMEDAN. What’s the impact on their future? So Silco has done quite a bit now. We’ve engaged the industry better. 

So this idea of somebody going for industrial training, they’re only drinking their coffee, or they’re just sitting there. No, we want you to be learning something. And so a number of those things are already in place. So we’re hoping that by the next set of people, you will see a difference. You’ll see some of those processes. The other thing is we’re moving forward with automating all our processes.

Some of that is in HR, which you won’t see yet. They’ve been training them. By the time we’re done, hopefully by the time I leave or when I’m leaving, that will be settled. And it’s already a process. So those things are going on.

Students in some quarters have seen statements you made concerning on-campus accommodation in a different light. Their view is that you don’t consider adequate and affordable accommodation a crucial part of the quality education you have harped on. Can you clarify this?

It’s a generic statement. It’s not about a particular set of students. Everywhere in the world, universities do education. Whether you have in-house education, students, hostels or not, varies from university to university. Some universities don’t provide accommodation at all.

That statement is really that the mandatory thing for universities is education. Many universities do not handle accommodation. They partner with places that don’t. You just find your accommodation. If you go abroad as well, it’s not every university that has a campus.

It’s a very generic statement that the provision of a hostel is an add-on to the university. There are some universities, even in Nigeria, that don’t have university accommodation. If you’re building a university, you don’t have to put accommodation there. For many places, they don’t necessarily do accommodation. Until very recently, the government was no longer providing money for hostels. It’s a new revised thing. 

In some universities, students don’t even want to stay on campus because the accommodation outside is cheap and easy. In Lagos, it’s different. Accommodation outside is horrible and expensive. Transportation is difficult. This statement is not targeted at particular students, but that’s the nature of university education.

Accommodation is not a necessity. Even for our staff, many want to stay on campus because it’s cheaper here. We recognise the special nature of Lagos. The statement is a generic statement.

How would you assess online learning so far?

Online learning worldwide has come to stay but isn’t considered the best because humans need space for socialisation. Nigeria’s population between 15 and 30 is 89 million, yet the university system caters to only about 2 million, leaving 86 million without access. 

Then you look at this so-called 2 million, 500,000 is by the National Open University (NOUN). That one university is a quarter of that 2 million. The rest of us over 260 universities do 1.5 million. It is very clear that if we’re going to take care of young people education-wise, this model cannot take us there. Online education requires certain things. On its own, you might prefer face-to-face, but it’s not going to solve youth education in Nigeria. 

If you look at every university everywhere, there is now a lot of online education because that’s the only way you can reach most people. Let’s come back to UNILAG. There’s no way going forward that you will not have some online classes. If we’re going to reach more people, we’re going to have more online classes. Everything has its good points and its bad points. Having online classes for one semester is not the kind of online learning we’re talking about that is not good. If it is exclusively online and no human interactions at all then you could say it is not good. 

You do the best you can in these circumstances. So the circumstances we have now is we have hostels in a terrible shape. We cannot repair those hostels unless students are out of them. We got money now. If we do not use that money now and keep it for next year, will we still be able to repair those hostels? No. And if we have to repair them now, what’s the alternative? Do we shut down and say, okay, let’s everybody have a holiday for six months? Or do we all have some level of inconvenience? Do what needs to be done.

You previously highlighted some problems that students face because of online classes, such as power outages caused by the incessant failure of the national grid, poor networks, and lack of data. What is the university doing to help students?

When it fails, it fails here, too. Nothing is happening in your house that is not happening here. We are also using electricity. What do you want us to do to help you? 

35,000 students who are subsidised already? You know you are subsidised. Very subsidised. Most of you paid more at the secondary school level. This is a university. We all must remember that nobody’s paying for the things you use every day. 

What the government gives us for overhead, which is recurrent, will not pay my electricity bill in a month. And I’m not joking about it. So, if you were to be coming from home, how much would you pay for transportation? That’s why we’re helping you with online classes. The amount you will spend on transportation in two weeks, you’ll use for data.

I would be happier to have students around. There are a lot of things we would be doing. You guys create a buzz. But the point is, we have to make a decision. You take pictures and put them on the internet. See the state of our toilets. And then you talk about bed bugs.

So if you want us to repair the hostels, you have to manage some inconvenience. That’s life. 

Students have shown their dissatisfaction with online learning. Some have claimed the LMS is not yet functional. Others asked why they pay for labs and are made to learn online where these labs cannot be used. What do you have to say about these issues?

Please let us know where you have those challenges. That’s why we have CITS, because part of online learning is that there will be glitches. But we need to get feedback. And I can assure you that if we get the feedback, we will try to solve it. I’ve got some of the problems that some lecturers are not engaging enough online. We’re working on that, but you have to admit that you are more digital natives than some of our lecturers.

Some are better than others. We’ve been doing training, but on every topic, you can get a lot on it without going through us lecturers. What we do is curate it for you and get you to think about it.

And we hope we will do more of that so that you’re not waiting for our lectures. What we should be doing is making sense of the information. We’re trying to get that across so that they tell you, go read this material, you come to class, we do a discussion. We hope that that’s where we’re going.

Because truly, my lecture only limits you. The information available on the internet is a lot more than whatever I bring. What I’m bringing is a small part of it. You need to know it is much bigger. But if there are any problems, please, give us those complaints, and we will try to fix them.

If we get the feedback, we will work on it. So issues like uploading or access problems. please give us those complaints, because we want to make online learning better. We want to make it better. I know it’s not perfect, but let us have feedback.


Are we going to write first-semester exams online?
We’re trying to see, if some will be online and some may not. Because it is difficult to do essays online, as we don’t have the capacity. That is why I said I’m not sure, and there will be some online. Some things will go to CBT.

People are working on it now, to see how we can do it most conveniently for students. To see if we would have come in, but if we have resumed and people have come back in. Fine.

But I also want you to recognise that at the best of times, we only have about 10,000 bed spaces, for 35,000 students. Now, some people have said let us open up some hostels. But the thing is, you will kill those hostels.

Because if we give one person, 15 people will stay there. Those hostels can’t handle 15 people, and then the same number of people who normally come will come into those few hostels. They’ll destroy it in a short time. So we have to make that decision.

What collaboration with the alumni do we have to increase our endowment fund so that we can have more money?  And, how are you collaborating with Alumni to ensure that the gap between the town and the gown is bridged?

Endowment funds from alumni are based on a number of things. One is a culture of giving to institutions. And then, there’s the ability of the alumni themselves. You can’t give huge amounts if you don’t have huge amounts. Now, across the world, the best place for alumni giving is the US.

They do it more than anybody else because they have that culture. A lot of the universities there are much older than we are. They are in a country that has policies in place to support giving. In other words, when you donate to this, you get tax breaks, you get all sorts of incentives. Here, we’re barely sixty years old. Most of our alumni are still struggling to survive. 

We also don’t have the culture of giving to institutions, because for you to do that, there must be generational wealth. For many people, they’re the first in their family that went to school. So even if they had money, they’re using it to bring up their family. They’re settling in.

So we do not have the depth in alumni to be able to give in the sort of way that you would get in places like Harvard. However, we have been cultivating our alumni, and in the last two decades, the engagement has been improving. We have some endowments, but it’s not anything huge yet.

Between 2014/15, and this year, all our endowment was moved into TSA, which meant it did not garner 1% in income. We fought, and they told us we could go to treasury bills. 

It was only this year that we have been allowed to take our endowments out of TSA, to put it back in commercial banks and to be able to invest properly. So it goes beyond engaging alumni, but we are engaging alumni. That’s why the alumni have their office in the GTB; they helped to bring in Zenith, and so part of it was to give us a floor.

We have a floor for the advancements, so we are pushing, and we’re beginning, we are also beginning to have more mature alumni, and they’re beginning to recognise the need to give back. So we’re seeing a lot more of that activity.