One of the educational reforms that is being implemented at the tertiary level of education in Nigeria, is that "proposition" aimed at focusing, more, the first generation universities on postgraduate training. This development comes as a response to the obvious dearth of qualified academics in our secondary and tertiary institutions. The University of Ibadan has been ahead of the rest in implementing this reform.

Every year the universities admit more and more students into their various post-graduate programmes. While a lot of people (including this author) would not think twice about praising this new trend, I still can't help wondering whether this development does not compromise quality for quantity.

Educational formation is a continuum; the picture we ought to be sketching is a holistic one. It is the primary school pupils today that will proceed to the secondary schools tomorrow and to the universities (the) next. Thus a reform that focuses its energies on the post-graduate training without taking into due consideration, the education given at lower levels would entirely be a case of garbage in-garbage-out.

Of course, it would be sheer injustice to the universities to deny that there is a process of selection at the admission stage, designed to hand pick only the best qualified for the post-graduate training. However, two factors have combined to reduce the effectiveness of the selection process. In the first place: the universities select from the lot graduates every year, who are products of an already, moribund undergraduate, secondary and primary educational system. Thus the 'best' students from such a system would be of a standard far below the expected, albeit a few exemptions. Secondly, universities require funding to function and as the government allocation continues to be insufficient, schools turn to the admission process as their major source of income. A simple arithmetic, the more students you admit, the more funds you have, and postgraduate students pay more.

Evidence has shown that while this reform may serve as a good proposition, it may have become a case of doing something so we can say we are doing something. Professor David Okali, President of the Nigerian Academy of Sciences, announced last year that none of the entries for the 2007 edition of the, NLNG-sponsored, Nigeria prize for Science, was good enough to advance beyond the first stage of the award process. In other words, last year and for the second time in three years, there was no winner for the science prize. It is a similar story for the National Merit Award for science for which a winner has not emerged for the past three years.

This serves more than a revelation, indeed it is an indication that unless adequate measures are taken in order to revive the whole of the educational sector, then we can wave goodbye to the league of developing countries and perhaps we will create a new category - consuming country - for ourselves. The holistic approach to educational reform can be achieved, it will take some time but we'll be certain of better results at the short term land long term.