Globalization or neo-colonialism?

Today we’ll try to explain some aspect of Ukrainian «crawling» into WAT-GATS and its influence upon  the educational process. The Ukraine ‘creeped there’ («PROSKLIZNULA») before Russia which made some stuck-sticks to obstacle. ‘THEIR’ Russia-motherland could not long time enter WAT-GATS because of  Poland and Kirghizia objections. Well, in general all is well that ends well.
 
What has happened since is hard to describe.

We – all who lived under the ‘iron curtain’ – suddenly have been plunged into a world we never quite believed in. We discovered suddenly that there’s much we can do now free and on our own. For example, any Medical UNI is now authorized to communicate with all invisible world around us, and by means of internet make ‘open eyes’ to the existence of so and so MED UNI for the under-educated countries suffered from lack of such UNI’s concerned.

The essay style I’ve chosen let me be small-small talkative and first of all, my dear reader, I
ask you to imaging that you now are in a wonderful country which was once called the pearl of crown of Her majesty Queen of the Britannic empire. Why Nigeria? In fact, I know a lot about this ‘promised land’, I lived there for a long time, I love people there… But Nigeria is far-far away.

We’re in Ukraine NOW… So –
Welcome to our daring tale
But there’s a little twist:
This is not the very start.
That’s right! – stuff you missed.

Once upon a time…. A group of 12 boys and girls students were quietly sitting and stood up greeting me. Some boys’ faces were ‘decorated’ by sacral scars, all folk were very familiar by the golden-brown skin color…. My first question – Nigeria? Oh, yes! Who’s Yoruba? We’re all Yoruba! Who’s from Osogbo? One boy was from the city of Osogbo Osun State of Nigeria
We sang by choir republic of Nigeria’s Anthem, which ends with words “Peace and Unity” and proceeded to their higher education.
 
Why did such a NIGERIZATION of higher medical school in Lugansk State Medical University happen?....

It’s not only here, in Lugansk. Other Med. & Techno UNI’s are overcrowded by Nigerian (and African also) people…. I hear the traditional song’s voices here in crescendo sounding louder and louder; that is a wonderful melody of Afro-ju-ju: “Esheu-Esheu… We’re all dancing Afro-ju-ju”.


Leading newspapers of Nigeria, the greatest by the population of the African continent, the richest among countries-suppliers oil (OPEC), country of more than hundred different cultures (so many different tribes are there), beat an alarm. This country is waiting a danger in the near future that «the higher education will disappear totally, but will be possible only abroad». For those, who wish exact accordance with an original; see please a verbatim citation «it’s a fact that the menace of cross-border higher education is real in Nigeria».

All governmental federal reliable papers (Guardian, Vangard, Daily Champion, Daily Trust) and numerous local newspapers draw the attention of relevant regulatory authorities in Nigeria particularly those at the Federal Ministry of Education (FME) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) to this.

The London-based ‘Observatory on Borderless Higher Education’ classified Nigeria as one of the countries in the world where there are no regulations at all on cross-border higher education. According to them, this means that 'there are no special regulations or control of foreign providers, which are free to operate without seeking permission from the host country'.

Anyone who carries out a superficial survey of advertisements on cross-border higher education by foreign higher education providers in Nigeria newspapers would be shocked at the alarming number of such advertisements every week. For example, my cursory investigation revealed that in The Guardian newspaper alone, there were as high as seven advertisements by different international higher education providers on cross-border education in Nigeria. Seven advertisements in just one very day - I can hear someone asking?
 
Again in the Saturday Vanguard, one of Nigeria's veteran columnists Bisi Lawrence alerted the nation that a particular international higher education provider has promised in its advertisement to offer Nigerians a Ph.D degree in six-to-twelve months. Ph.D degree in six-to-twelve months - I can also hear another person screaming ‘what-what’?

Can anyone please show me a government in any part of the developed world that can close its regulatory eyes and tolerate such a fraudulent advertisement? This is the danger when someone with such a dubious and fraudulent Ph.D degree will present a certificate to any of public and private universities for employment as a teacher/scholar/researcher.
 
I’m sure that the menace of cross-border higher education is real in Nigeria. I say so because some people may be under a wrong impression that the threat of cross-border higher education in Nigeria is not real enough to warrant a call for a firm regulatory policy on it.

Here, for example, are news from a province….

A state of Nasarava government was allocated 136 millions in domestic currency (US$1.5) for teaching 15 students in Ukraine. The press secretary of the department reported that 15 best students already had departed to the place of purpose, mainly, to universities on a civil aviation and high-Tech, but also - medicine, pharmacology, chemistry. Selected facilities, an official said, are fully enough for coverage of transportation, tuitions, room & board for 6 years, as it is accepted there for them. Only 6 students received allowances for teaching in normal Europe – that is very expensive.

They now consider a possibility of selection of facilities 42 millions a year (US$ 0,5 mln per student) for  studying children departing to Ukraine.

For comparison such a scholarship arrears for those studying abroad: a federal government is selected up to 62 million domestic currency for the dispatch of one resident abroad  but for the current needs of national education no more than 250 million is annually expended in Nigeria. Here, that is created! Did one state of country of Nigeria do better than almost all of the federal program of educational level raising?

No, dear reader, this African country cares of the future, and arranges FREE higher but foreign education. If every state in a year will take away for studies 10 babies, these would be 570 students for higher Ukrainian school. In Britain and USA, it’s so-o-o-o expensive, and Ukraine fully on a pocket, the more so, regularly in the day-time period, up to ten new fraudulent announcements appear in newspapers….

Cross-border education brings with it the dangers of total lack of regulation and control, which in education at least permits abroad to dominate. While observing that globalization has run amok, subjecting academe to the rigors of a WTO-enforced market-place can destroy one of the most valuable institutions in any society. WTO-GATs as a new form of neo-colonialism will only breed inequality and dependence of educational recourses.

The deceitful Ad’s in papers and internet like the degree of Ph.D in nautical navigation  through 6 to 12 months in Ukraine or direct sending to practical job to any state of the USA after majoring the Lugansk Medical UNI, are attractive.

That there are a lot of fraudsters in cross-border higher education market is not in doubt. There are unrecognized and rogue cross-border providers that are active in the global higher education market. And the reality is that much of the latest cross-border education is driven by commercial interests, while mechanisms to recognize qualifications and ensure quality of the academic courses and programmes are still not in place in many countries. It is important to acknowledge the huge potential of cross-border education but not at the expense of academic quality and integrity.

This is all very essential for Nigeria as a world renown initiator and inventor of internet bluff called ‘Nigerian letters’.

Nigerian people do not know our grand-dad Lenin’s slogan “To study, study and once again study”. Nobody can prevent the ‘knowledge-lust’ but everybody has rights to choose on one’s own educational establishment and in any point of the motherland or world. It is a basic human right, we have no objection, my kind reader. Go and study wherever you want and… let it be, but for God sake….

It’s no good to have only interested in making quick money on the delivery of ’high quality education’ which is comparable or even lower to what they provide in their home countries.

***
I know the Nigerian State Med UNI in Ibadan and one private UNI I worked for. Their level are much higher than, for instance, Lugansk Med UNI.

People came here, in Ukraine, due to extreme tuition damping and being cheating by a theory under the name «fast-track degree programs».

As you know, Nigeria is a very corruptive country, as well as the modern Ukraine, but the latter is poor (pauper) but Nigeria has an ‘oil-dollars’ excess. There are a lot of higher clerks who want to take advantage of present loose borders (physical and electronic) and booming higher education market to defraud/cheat Nigerians and subvert their national interest because they neither add value to the higher education sector specifically nor to the economy in general.

Who is worried about these?...

Process of “cross-border education” is in conformity to the law and necessity. It is no law against it. This process especially «strongly went» after disintegration of the Berlin wall, and then after the Soviet Socialistic empire’s collapse. Who can withstand or what can be done with this globalization? Nobody and nothing will not stop it, and it similarly correctly, as one sung in a soviet song the «Peace will win over war». (You know that ‘Peace’ and ‘World’ are in Russian the same in pronunciation and writing – ‘Mir’).

I love globalization of higher education….

It seems to me as such giant WHITE shark, which, contrary to biological laws, became a predator and devoured on the way DULLNESS, SOVIETISM and DOGMATISM, CRETINISM of old men’s ideas of OUR HIGHER SCHOOLS, BACKWARDNESS and unwillingness to be perfected...

However those, who understand globalization and neo-colonialism as synonyms, who try again to exchange away colored rags and fish hooks for «aborigines» gold noose-rings, stuck in a nose, risk to become slaves themselves. That slaves of, whom they today consider deserving the worst and «obscene» higher education in the world for amusing money.

Emil Pick