EAP 1 Portfolio: Comparing Universities In England And Nigeria Essay.

The activities included in the portfolio will help you to:

• Increase your awareness of academic writing features, including academic style and structure.
• Develop your academic vocabulary and grammatical accuracy.
• Develop your research skills necessary for academic success.
• Develop a variety of reading strategies and techniques to enhance your understanding of academic texts.

Portfolio Activities

This is your EAP 1 Portfolio which must be submitted on Wednesday 25th April by 2pm via the student portal. Please save a copy on your computer and back it up regularly (e.g. by saving it on your computer / in the cloud (e.g. Google Drive) / emailing it to yourself. You will receive a printed copy which you should bring to all lectures and tutorials. However, at the end of the course, you need to submit a completed electronic copy. Please refer to suggested word counts for each task included within this portfolio.

1.Produce cohesive and coherent elements of academic writing.

Read, compare and summarise written academic texts.

Text 1:

University fees in England Text 2 (paste your text below):

“University tuition fees in England will rise to £9,250 per year from 2017 and the increase could apply to students who have already started courses. The inflation-linked rise represents a 2.8% increase and if that continued would mean fees rising above £10,000 in the next few years.  Universities face the dilemma that under consumer protection requirements they will need to announce the £9,250 fee before the beginning of the next application cycle in early September. However, until formally changed by Parliament, universities are not allowed to charge a fee higher than £9,000, which is the current limit.

The government says the increase can apply to students who have already begun courses - but this will depend on the terms of student contracts in individual universities.  The fees will increase in subsequent years. Royal Holloway and the University of Kent have to still to decide on whether to charge higher fees for current students, but expect to apply them to new students starting in 2017, if the fee limit increase goes ahead. The University of Surrey will not increase fees for its current undergraduates, but fees will increase each year for students starting in 2017.

Universities minister Jo Johnson has published a statement setting out plans to link higher fees to better teaching. Liberal Democrat university spokeswoman Baroness Lorely Burt said: "Linking fees to teaching quality in this way is unacceptable. Enabling any university that scrapes a 'meet expectations' rating to increase fees by 2.8% shows that this isn't about teaching quality at all. If universities need further support then let's have a proper discussion about where that money comes from, rather than pretending that this is somehow a quid pro quo for providing the quality of teaching students should already be able to expect". Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust education charity, said the fee increase will add to student debts that we have shown to be by far the highest in the English-speaking world. A real concern is that the removal of maintenance grants will almost certainly deter poorer students, who now face debts of over £50,000 on graduation”.

Text Summary and Analysis

“No fewer than 38 universities across Nigeria have jerked up their fees.

The increment might be attributed to poor funding by the federal and state governments.

Recall that Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), poorly rated the President Muhammadu Buhari in the area of funding of university education.

ASUU noted that it will be difficult for any Nigeria university to effectively compete globally with the attitude of Buhari not to allocate enough budgetary allocation as prescribed by UNESCO to fund education.

In a statement made available to DAILY POST, the Chairman, ASUU – University of Ibadan chapter, Dr. Deji Omole, lashed out at the APC for promising “a minimum of 15 percent for education”.

The statement which assessed the two years of Buhari in office, lamented that the current government had made Nigerians poorer, adding that public education was not taken seriously because most children of the rich and those in high offices do not school in Nigeria.

• The increase in the tuition fees of the various universities might have an effect on the existing students of the universities.
• There are possibilities that the authorities at the various universities might need to announce the increment that is to be implemented at the start of the upcoming application cycle.
• The government assures that the increment of the tuition fees for the existing students would depend on the terms that have been agreed upon in their respective student contracts with the concerned universities.
• The relation existing between the increment of the fees and the quality of the education that is imparted is debatable.
• Sudden increase in the tuition fees of 38 different universities.
• The hike has been attributed to the poor funding that is extended by the state government and the various state governments.
• The president has been criticised on the lack of the funding that is associated with the educational industry in Nigeria which might have led to the increment of the fees.
• This step might lead to the decrease in the quality of the education that is imparted to the concerned students.
• The decrease in the quality of the education might lead to the conditions wherein the students of Nigeria would be lacking in the skills that are necessary for competing with their counterparts who have been studying in the universities of the world.

What are the similarities and differences between universities in England and Nigeria in relation to tuition fees? Why are they important?

There are major similarities among the universities that are present in the countries that are studied in this assignment. The universities in England are known to have been planning an increment of the tuition fees in the universities of the country. The universities have been charging the students with a high amount of the tuition fees irrespective of their enrolment status in the concerned universities. There is an assurance from the end of the government of England that the increase in the tuition fees of the existing students might depend on the contracts that the students might have signed while enrolling themselves at the various courses at the university. The news report further states that there might exist a link between the tuition fees that are levied by the universities in both the countries. The education in Nigeria is majorly funded by the government of the country. Thus, the reduction in the aid from the governmental bodies might result in the lowering of the standards of the education in the country. These low standards of the education might lead to the backward conditions in Nigeria.

The quality of the education that is imparted in the universities of should not be linked to the fees that the concerned university charges for the given course of study. The quality of the education that is imparted in the universities of England is related to the fees that is levied by the universities that are responsible for the education that is imparted to the concerned students. There has been evident a huge number of debates on the issue regarding the proposal that the quality of the education that is imparted at the various universities tend to vary with the change in the amount of the fees that is levied by the concerned university. There are reports that suggest the parity between the fees that are charged for the completion of the educational courses that the students might have enrolled themselves in. this has resulted in the conditions of the huge debates on the issues that pertain to the matters linking the fees of the concerned course and the quality of the education that is to be imparted in the concerned course (Raffe and Croxford 2015). However, the experts suggest that there should not exist any linkages between the knowledge that is imparted through the course and the remuneration for the same course. The Nigerian universities however face a different issue in this case. The quality of the education in Nigeria especially in the matters pertaining to the higher educational facilities in the country face a huge set back due to the fact that there are not enough of the facilities and the funds that are needed to maintain the same (Asiyai 2013). The residents of the country tend to believe in the fact that the poor funding of the educational causes might pose to be a hindrance to the development of the country in the global arena. Thus, it might be concluded that the quality of the education imparted should not bear any dependency on the fees levied for taking the concerned course of study.

• I felt confident of being able to do the research that was necessary for the completion of the given assignment.
• I felt confident with the choice of the major points that were to be discussed within the essay.
• I felt that I could understand the problems that were discussed within the news stories.
• I felt that I am competent enough to compose the thesis statement of the essay and the introduction of the essay.

I feel that I need to work on the use of the language for the composition of the essay. I had to edit the draft of the essay a huge number of times so as to produce the essay that depicted the correct usage of the grammar in the concerned essay. I also feel that I need to hone my skills of composing the essay. I had to edit the essay in order to put forth a continuous flow for the information presented in the concerned essay.

Reference List:

Asiyai, R.I., 2013. Challenges of quality in higher education in Nigeria in the 21st century. International Journal of Educational Planning & Administration, 3(2), pp.159-172.

Ebisine, S.S., 2014. Academic quality Assurance in the colleges of education: Challenges and ways forward for future development. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (13), pp.1-9.

Raffe, D. and Croxford, L., 2015. How stable is the stratification of higher education in England and Scotland?. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(2), pp.313-335.

Stephenson, J. and Yorke, M. eds., 2013. Capability and quality in higher education. Routledge.