The unbundling of Mass Communications in 2020 by the National Universities Commission, (NUC) into seven (7) different disciplines viz Media & Journalism Studies, Public Relations, Advertising, Photo Journalism, Film Studies, Radio & TV Broadcast and Development Communication Studies is attracting criticism at last.
Prof Oloyode
Prof. Is’haq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says the unbundling is untimely. It is not clear why the Registrar is just speaking or if he has expressed any reservations on the exercise before. For him and for now, “It is crucial to maintain a broad-based approach at the undergraduate level given our current developmental challenges,”
Speaking at the 15th anniversary celebration of the University of Ilorin’s radio station – 89.3FM, Oloyede took the position that specialization which is a key argument by protagonists of bundling ought to take place at the postgraduate studies. his reason is Nigeria’s current employment landscape which favours a graduate with multi-task capacity.
Prof Oloyede who spoke on “The Future of Radio, AI and the Transformation of Broadcasting,” stressed how Nigeria’s level of development does not warrant the unbundling of Mass Communication at the undergraduate level, fearing how the unbundling could limit job opportunities for graduates in a country already facing high unemployment rates. “We need to be broader, given the level of our under-development. It is important to keep Mass Communication at the undergraduate level,” was his signing off on the issue.
There is no knowing how far the unbundling has gone. The tone of Prof Oloyode’s intervention suggests the unbundling could still be shifted or delayed. He should know, being the man who presides over who crosses from being a prospective undergraduate to an actual undergraduate in Nigeria.
How far, NUC?
When the NUC announced the unbundling around 2020, “creating the opportunity for students of communication in Nigerian universities to start thinking of specialisation from their very first day as undergraduates in any of the new departments created from the hitherto omnibus Mass Communication programme in Nigerian universities” was the main reason. This quote is from a Mass Communication teacher in the system who rose in defense of the unbundling.
From a purely specialisation gaze, he got it right but critics were not persuaded. One reason for that is the empirical reason the mandarins of the system such as Oloyode is harping on. An even more fundamental question against an unbundling exercise was and is: unbundling in the age of trans-disciplinarity?
As the argument goes, there is almost nowhere in the world today where a degree programme in whichever area or discipline can escape coming to grips with the metatheoretical, ontological and methodological controversies that emerged in the post-Cold War. It is coming to grips with these convulsions that has basically removed the kind of autarkic specialisation that promoters of unbundling were and are peddling. Yet, the unbundling passed through as a policy.
Meanwhile, products of the Nigerian university system are expected to be in a position to compete, to be proficient in raising questions in their domain of knowledge and be able to attempt answering such questions with implications for a plausible answer.
It might be possible for the Oloyodes to stop the unbundling! If they do that, they would be nipping in the bud a manifestation of the systemic decay the Nigerian polity is raking about regarding the university system. While it is the Nigerian State that deliberately killed the once glorious national university system because they didn’t want a critical mass capable of system interrogation, it was academics who went out of their way to push the unbundling agenda. Tragically, neither the NUC nor the Federal Ministry of Education appeared to know or feel anything about the implications of such a move. Before anyone could say Mass Communications, unbundling had been approved. Where in the world does specialisation start at undergraduate level?
