"Public vs Private First-Class Student" Debate: Pedestrian??

I'm pretty sure that a key predictor of undergraduate success is secondary school success. Foundation matters.

A friend of mine who graduated as the Best Graduating Student in Arts from her DLHS campus just graduated as one of the Best Graduating Students from the Law Department at Redeemers University.

Iwasam, who was the Best Graduating Student in Commerce at my DLHS campus, graduated as the Valedictorian at Anchor University during her set.

Nelson, who was one of the Best Graduating Students at DLHS Lagos campus, went on to graduate as the Best Graduating Student from Covenant University.

Grace, another student who was among the Best Graduating Students at DLHS Lagos, graduated as the Best Graduating Student from Afe Babalola University.

Arafat, my coursemate who challenged me academically during my undergraduate days, was a top achiever at Nigeria Tulip International College (NTIC). She actually scored over 300 in UTME. These are just a few examples off the top of my head.

Public universities? Well, most of my top secondary school peers who chose the public university route are still studying, but they have been blazing the trails too.

From what I have seen, Philip, who had a 5.0 GPA at FUTO, was a semifinalist in the Nigerian Olympiad competition during his secondary school days. I can point to friends with similar prior successes as well — you too can.

I've noticed though that parents of top students in private secondary schools are more inclined to have their kids study abroad or in private universities — Covenant, Landmark, ABUAD, AUN, Redeemers, Baze, Nile, and so on. I think that explains the observation by Daniel, the former head of the Nigerian Student Society in Luxembourg, that 3 out of 5 students who got and completed scholarships abroad came from private universities.

Yes, there are many explanatory variables — socioeconomic background, exposure, selectivity (most private universities are picky, and those that aren't are quite expensive, leading parents to weigh the worth of the sacrifice). For Nile University, many of us were there for being among the top 0.01% best-performing students in the country — I, for instance, represented my State in National competitions, had a perfect GPA in both Senior and Junior Secondary school, scored above 4As in WASSCE, was a 3-time award-winning school prefect, and had 300+ in UTME. You see?

So, there's a lot of filtering going on in private universities even before these students meet the post-graduate scholarship boards. Let's not even talk about the peer pressure.

Private university relationships are wild, for real! You might want to catch up with a top flyer friend on WhatsApp, only to find that the +234 has suddenly disappeared. It makes you realize what's going on.

I recently attended a Chevening Scholarship program organized by scholars, and before I knew it, the organizer, a UK scholar, shared that she was a first-class graduate of Nile University of Nigeria. These are the sorts of connections that nudge you, as a private university top student to play the game of excellence on the global stage. And it's all good if you're good at playing your cards rightly at every turn.

Regarding the argument that private university students wouldn't succeed in public universities, I think the challenges of public universities can be acknowledged without diminishing the achievements of excellent private university students. As I've already mentioned, many of these students were likely the Best Graduating Students from the same secondary schools you attended. What makes you think they wouldn't thrive if their parents had chosen the public university route for them?

First-class excellence is a product of a first-class attitude, and one of its key attributes is adaptability. No matter how tough you think a university is, there will always be a Best Graduating Student, and more often than not, that spot goes to those with the first-class attitude. Fire doesn't reduce gold to glitter. Dark nights can't dim bright lights. And if you think private universities don't have their share of challenges and difficult lecturers, think again! You can't build strong opinions on institutions you've never really experienced.

In my experience interacting with them, top students in public universities don't dwell on such divisive conversations; they don't look down on their excellent counterparts from private universities. Our conversations have always been forward-looking, discussing scholarships, career plans, and more recently, the need to explore opportunities outside Nigeria. We have a lot of individual worth, achievements, and mutual respect to anchor our egos on.

Then there's the public policy issue tied to this public-private divisive stance.

If your ego is tied to the inefficiency of your institution, what's your incentive to address and fix it? Fixing it would mean losing the source of your ego. Why tackle issues like rogue lecturers if their existence adds prestige by making education tougher than it should be? Do you think if students collectively said, "enough with these malpractices from lecturers" — the sorting, the alleged careless grading, the missing script incidents — that we wouldn't keep lecturers on their toes? But since inefficiencies have become a point of pride rather than the quality of learning, why would there be any motivational will to address them? This issue affects both private and public universities. And that makes my next point.

I don't think we, as a generation, understand what we're collectively up against. That's why we cling to these divisive narratives, which derail our will to find progress in addressing our shared national challenges. In a few decades, we will be at the helm of national affairs. We will be its doctors, engineers, diplomats, ministers, educators, voters, politicians, civil servants, pilots, policymakers, economists, historians, and more. Even those of us who end up living abroad will find that our respect among our foreign hosts is tied to the level of impact we engineer back home. If you doubt that, check the mission of all the major scholarships you apply for.

There's no escape from the obligation to improve our homeland. If we don't, we will all suffer the consequences. The consequence of a dysfunctional society is very democratic in its dissemination — it affects everyone, public and private alike, especially on a reputational level.

There is a respect that comes only from being part of a functional society. That's the respect we give to the citizens of the US, China, the UK, and so on. But functional societies don’t build themselves; functional citizens do.

We cannot be functional citizens without the right knowledge, and the institutions responsible for imparting that are our educational institutions. So, if lecturers are robbing you of the functional knowledge needed to develop the competencies to be a functional citizen, then rather than take that as a vain badge of pride, it's our duty not to enable that dysfunction — what are your unions for? As one who has handled some cases like this before, you can even reach out to me if you need guidance on how best to handle this in a way that's politically efficient. We must come together to call it out, not just for our GPAS but for the sake of the functional society we need to build.

As a generation, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a country we can all be proud to call home. But that prideful tomorrow can only begin with functional steps today. And one of those steps is understanding that, private and public university students alike, we are all in this together. And that every problem that threatens the functionality of the society we want to live in is our problem as a collective.

Funny enough, this should've been a statement from the National Association of Nigerian students but bruhhh....SMH!