Check out UK and Nigeria University head to head(MUST READ)

When people are asked why African nations are struggling in areas of development, governance and many others,when the developed world are flourishing, many are quick to give excuses ranging from bad leadership, corruption,ethnicity e.t.c. In this post , i like to present a different approach to these problems. I sincerely think African biggest problem is  lack of a well structured Education system. For simplicity, i like to use Nigeria and UK as a case study because i have lived in both countries well enough and i have gotten degrees in both. It has been very easy to discover educational patterns that make the UK what it is today and also the patterns that characterizes the Nigeria education system.

1. UK built their education system around their own way of living, their culture and to solve their own problems while Nigeria adopted a system that is so different from its way of life in many areas.

2. Research findings from studies in the UK are integrated into the system to impact government and citizens positively while research findings from Nigeria universities are stacked in unread books and journals and don't impact the lives of the ordinary man.

3. Quality education is made accessible to all in the UK while only the rich can afford the allegedly "good education" in Nigeria.

4. Education research, project and studies are sponsored by the government and business organizations to a large scale in the UK while government and business sponsored researches in Nigeria is almost non-existent. Interested and smart individuals inconvenience themselves to carry out researches and the fact that the results are swept under the carpet make this so painful.

5. In the latest QS ranking, UK currently boast about 17 universities in the world's best 100 university while no Nigeria University is in the top 1000 world universities.

 To say African continent will undergo a major turn around if they tackle their education crisis is an understatement. Lets all join hands to make African work.

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2014 Top 20 Universities In Nigeria Based On Web Ranking

According to 41cu.org,an international higher education search engine and directory reviewing accredited Universities and Colleges in the world, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is the best web ranking university in Nigeria.

The current ranking is based upon an algorithm including five unbiased and independent web metrics extracted from three different search engines:

Google Page Rank

Alexa Traffic Rank

Majestic Seo Referring Domains

Majestic Seo Citation Flow

Majestic Seo Trust

Check out the first 10 universities in Nigeria:

Check out the remaining top 20 universities,,

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The role of higher Education to Africa's development

 Africa as a continent is beginning to see the light of day.The focus of economic growth is departing from the export of mineral resources to areas of manufacturing, construction and agriculture. Despite this growth, Africa still lags behind in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index. The Africa Union (AU) is trying to sustain these economic growth in other to bring about human development.

Higher education play an important role in human development. Human development principles is practiced by those who are thought the relevance of human development to nation building. The lack of solid African University structure is one of the reasons for this backdrop.The world bank has previously focused on building a solid primary education in the continent spending a whooping 82% in per capita public spending between 1980 and early part of the 21st century.

Various educationist has argued on the importance of Universities to human development. Manuel Castells, a sociologists wrote a paper with emphasis on " university as the engine of development". Since 2001, the World Bank has started focusing on the importance of Higher education to the development to the Africa continent.

Africa has an estimated 800 universities and about 1,500 higher institutions of learning. Despite this high number, Africa's research output in terms of accredited journal publications is declining from 1% in the mid 1980s to 0.7% in 1990s. One of the reasons for this is the low access to higher education despite the overcrowded lecture theaters.Collaboration between African universities is very low as most African countries maintain a stronger bond to their colonial masters than amongst member countries. 

Education makes people enlightened about the present and makes then positive about the future. University education in its proper form can drive better awareness to human development principles than any other agent of change. Therefore, it is imperative that Africa Universities awaken to their responsibilities and under proper leadership bring about the proper change.

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Protesting students stoned Prime Minister

Prime Minister

 Prime Minister of Burkina Faso Luc-Adolhe Tio was stoned by protesting students during a visit to the University of Ouagadougou last month.Prime Minister Tiao wanted to prove his readiness and availability to the school's problem but the angry students who are still not happy with the structure of the university reacted otherwise, reported Le Pays.

Le Pays reported that the government efforts deserved recognition because the visit was a good step taken by the prime Minister to see the harsh realties himself.
Hasty decisions like the introduction of LMD (Licence masters doctorate), the system of 3, 5 and 8 years higher education based on the Bologna process has been made. Students dissatisfaction over issues of demotivation of the teaching staffs and lack of facilities and infrasture were the main causes.

The actions of the students has been widely condemned by the people and the tabloid because they showed immaturity and turned to violence instead of dialogue like the Prime Minister wanted.The Prime minister had planned to spend time talking to the lectures,students union,members of staff and the governing boards of the university.

A power cut during the Prime Minister address was the begining of the debacle.It was reported that students became angry when a generator was brought for the ceremony to continue.

The students stated that they are so used to the breakdowns and nobody provides them with generator.This made Tiao wait until the power was returned.Soon after he continued, there was a second power outage which sparked the end of the ceremony, leading to the mounting of the students anger and as the Prime Minister was about to have talks with other members of the university in another room, the students started throwing stones at Tiao and blocked the outside road for about an hour and burned tyres.

* This article is drawn from local media. Skoolthings cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.

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