Insult! ASUU Kicks On Netherlands’ Stand On Africa University Degrees

The School of Business in Amsterdam University, Netherlands, has stirred the hornets’ nest with a post on its website which tends to underrate degree certificates from African Universities.

In particular, The School of Business in Amsterdam University, Netherlands, said, “An African bachelor’s degree is generally the equivalent of two years of academic education in the Netherlands.

“For eligibility, applicants with an African bachelor’s degree (except for South-Africa and Ghana) will need a bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in the field of Economics and Business, in order to be eligible for one of our M.Sc programmes.”

However, the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) kicked against such supercilious argument! Its President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, in an interview with The PUNCH on Tuesday, said the struggles of the union for repositioning Nigeria’s public universities for global competitiveness were aimed at preventing and countering such a damaging report from Amsterdam.

He said, “Despite the various challenges confronting our universities, Nigerian graduates, who enrolled for higher degrees in universities in Europe and American universities, are excelling in all fields of academic pursuits.

“While we acknowledge that there are great scholars in Ghanaian and South African universities, a close study of leading scholars in universities in the two countries will reveal a heavy presence of Nigerian academics.”

Also, Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, Prof. Monday Ubangha, was quoted by The PUNCH: “I will be surprised to hear that and I do not know if they have the curriculum of the B.Sc in Nigeria universities. I’m aware we have our graduates all over the world and minimum of 128 credit unit is required for a three-year B.Sc in education.

“So, I wouldn’t know what they are talking about; I wouldn’t know why they made such a blanket statement. It is unfair. In UNILAG, our graduates compete favorably with others.”

Also acting Director, International Relations and Partnerships, University of Lagos, Dr Ismail Ibraheem, told the newspaper, “The fact that they have chosen not to recognise some degrees is meaningless outside the walls of their institution.

However, the school, as the report indicated, “made effort to edit some of the information afterwards. The spokesperson for the school, Marja Meer, in an online report said the information on the school’s website was incorrect. She also apologised for the inaccuracies.”