COREVIP SEMINAR: Oloyede Harps On Building Bridges To Overcome Barriers To High Education

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As part of the efforts to further consolidate and entrenched the gains of tertiary education on the continent, the Conference of Rectors, Vice Chancellors and Presidents of African Universities (COREVIP) has held its 2023 Conference in Windhoek, Namibia, between 4th and 7th July, 2023. In a bid to disseminate the message of the conference in Nigeria, particularly to those, who could not make it to conference, the office of the Ambassador of the Association of African Universities for West Africa in partnership with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has organised a seminar on “Advancing Excellence in Higher Education in Nigeria: A Reflection from COREVIP 2023.The Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, in a keynote address at the virtual seminar held on 2nd August, 2023, titled “Breaking Barriers and Building Strategies for Advancing Excellence in African Higher Education” stressed the need to build bridges to overcome barriers to higher education. The erudite scholar pointed out that breaking barriers means identifying and dismantling obstacles that prevent students from accessing higher education and preventing institutions from delivering high-quality education. According to him, building bridges, on the other hand, involves creating partnership and collaboration that can facilitate knowledge sharing and innovation across borders and disciplines. Prof. Oloyede, also explained that the barriers mitigating against the growth of higher education was that of barrier of access. This, he said could be traced to three important determinants of inequality such as gender, socio-economic status and religion. He averred that despite the immense progress made in recent times, millions of young people still lack access to higher education on account of poverty, distance, gender, disability and other factors. According to Prof. Oloyede, to break this barrier, there is a need to adopt an approach that include, but not limited to, expanding the capacity of existing institutions, creating new institutions, providing scholarships and bursaries and leveraging on technology to reach remote and marginalised communities.He also stressed the need to promote programmes and policies that promote inclusivity and equity in higher education while making education affordable and accessible to all.Other barriers cited included barrier to quality networking and funding, issue of brain drain, among others, and articulated necessary bridges to overcome the barriers. Prof. Oloyede also shared the JAMB experience with the participants comprising Rectors, Vice Chancellors and other critical stakeholders on the use of technology, deployment of the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), the consolidation of electronic examination introduced in 2013 and the collaboration, capacity building and networking within and outside the country in the Gambia, Ghana, Cameroon as well as efforts being made to promote internationalisation.Earlier, the distinguished Prof. Peter Okebukola, said the idea of a seminar was conceived to replicate the COREVIP 2023 Namibia experience in Nigeria with a view to domesticating and implementing the recommendations from Windhoek because the recommendations apply not only to Nigerians but to the entire West African sub-region as a whole.