THE COURTROOM

SPECIAL DVM PRACTICAL FEE: NECESSARY OR NOT?

Necessary…

My lord, I would have loved if the venue of this case was the Faculty Auditorium where students who had just finished their sojourn in veterinary school are being inducted into its profession. Only there will I have the opportunity to call some of the fresh graduates into the witness box and get to ask them the following questions - how many slides were you able to view in the Anatomy laboratory during your preclinical years? Were you able to carry out any practical exercise alone and not in group apart from examinations? How many of you have had the privilege to see an ultrasound machine? The answers to all these are as obvious as the ‘‘phy‘‘ in physiology - Not up to fifty slides, no practical exercise and maybe 5 of them would have been fortunate enough to see an ultrasound machine in movies. I wonder if after this, my opponent would still be bold enough to say special DVM practical fee is not necessary.

In case my opponent has forgotten, permit me to bring to her consciousness to the fact that over the years, the country‘s funding for education continued to rotate between 5%, 6% and 7% of the national budget. In the 2019 budget, the Federal Government still stuck with 5-7% of the national budget as against the 27% recommended by the United Nations. I wonder the amount of money that will be allotted to University of Ibadan amidst other 157 universities, 104 polytechnics and 82 colleges of education not to talk about the amount Faculty of Veterinary Medicine will receive. If mountain will not go to Muhammed, is it not right for Muhammed to go to mountain? If our goal is to train very sound veterinarians and the government has refused to pay, asking them to pay for practical should not even be a topic for discussion in the first place unless we want to doubt the uniqueness of Veterinary Medicine as a course.

Also, it is disheartening and worth lamenting knowing that most practical based programs in Nigeria today are being taught theoretically with little or no emphasis as to their feasibility. Grooming veterinary medical students that are not practically inclined is as good as producing a gallery of book-smart veterinarians. Who will eradicate rabies by 2030? Do not think about this set of vets at all. At this state of declining academic prowess, we need not to bamboozle ourselves. Students need practical knowledge to become Day 1 competent veterinarians because on their Day 1 as veterinarians, they must be all-rounder and that is what the profession demands. My lord, there is need for payment of this practical fee. The Courtroom

However, it is no doubt that the cost of attending tertiary institution has been increasing more rapidly for years. Students and parents have been struggling with bills and loans but you will agree with me that knowledge is less expensive than ignorance. Ignorance, no doubt, is dangerous, costly and pathological under any form of government. The argument today is if the schools cannot afford to cater for the expenses of practical, is special DVM practical fee necessary? The answer will always be yes. Cutting the head is definitely not the solution for headache. Not paying for practical is definitely synonymous to no practical or what I call non standardized practical. How then will we be able to compete with the outside world as vets if we are not well grounded in practical aspects of the profession?

My lord, my opponent would soon come and tell us about the indigent students who find it very difficult to pay their tuition fee not to talk of asking them to pay for DVM Practical fee but the question I would like to ask her is - how many students cannot afford it? Who are the beneficiaries of most scholarships, grants and students‘ loans? If only she had asked and answered herself these questions initially, this case would not have gotten to court. I rest my case.

Hell no!

My lord, now that the Special DVM Practical fee has been introduced, I just hope our new products will be special. I hope job will be impatiently waiting for our special DVM graduates. I hope our special practical gurus will be more practically equipped than the ―ordinary‖ DVM graduates some years back. My lord, I am hoping.

Just some years ago, the budgetary expenditure of just a single university, North California State University, was N1,212,123,331,310 while the Federal Government of Nigeria‘s budget for education in all her 36 states was N498,456,130,065. Actually, my lord, Nigeria‘s is just 40.88% of California State University‘s allocation. Now I ask, who is to be blamed? Is it the government who are obviously crippling in their duties? Or innocent students whose aims are to excel in life? It is definitely the government. The government should sponsor education, especially in public education outlets, but they have copiously failed in their duties. They have publicly grappled with the UNESCO‘s directive of 26% budgetary allocation to education, greedily giving below 7% to education – the lowest in any African country. Therefore, my lord, we should hold the government for payment of any fees, including special DVM fees, not students.

Now, people will say ―government cannot do everything nau, the responsibilities should be shared between government and the beneficiaries (students).‖ Looking carefully to this situation, let us have a critical comparison. NASU are currently on strike because the government is not

complying with their demands, NASU did not say ―let‘s just endure, the government is under a critical state of restructuring and the nation lacks funds. Let‘s just share the responsibility with the government and donate part of our salaries.‖ My lord, I strongly believe that rather than sky rocketing students‘ fees and arraigning the innocent students, we should find a way of addressing the problem from the source, the government. In a hitch-free and non-violent way we should make them recognize the need for proper funding of the education sector.

Considering the amount of this special DVM practical fee still makes me laugh at its necessity. Will N15,000 make vet students have access to individual microscopes during histology practical? Will we have 30 horses in the faculty? Will we get to experience and learn the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in animals? Can our N15,000 afford us an electron microscope and an ultrasound machine? Will we be comparable with our colleagues abroad in terms of practical exposure after paying this fee? These are the questions I keep asking myself. This premise, however, is not to encourage anyone to propose a N300,000 special DVM practical fees but to reiterate the fact that more realistic approaches to making the DVM programme special should be considered.

My lord, knowing fully well we have an incapacitated government who cannot readily dance to our tunes currently, we have to generate means of solving the puzzle ourselves. Universities worldwide have evolved ways of sourcing for funds for their various activities. It is established and known that the cost of education is getting higher because of the contemporary advancement in knowledge-base and technology. Most successful universities generate financial aids through donations, endowments, grants, gifts, professional chairs, etc. My lord, rather than suffocating innocent students with some fees, why not looking into these approaches and birthing ways of implementing these in our universities. In addition, the management should be proactive in educating students about opportunities that can help nurture their financial status. If many vet students are on good scholarships and grants, then there would be no issues paying these fees.

Well, if an average vet student is assured of a very decent job on graduation, if the Special DVM Practical fee will make us equals with our mates abroad in terms of practical exposure, then the fee may be justified. Nigeria is unarguably blessed with resources and largely unexploited wealth, it will be necessary if we deploy our knowledge and ideas to utilizing these and ensuring proper effectiveness of our government, then education and other sectors in Nigeria will be improved and proper funded.