AN APPRAISAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

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AN APPRAISAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN
NIGERIA

• Abiodun Olukayode OLOTUAH,Department of
  Architecture, Federal University of Technology,
• Akure, 34001, Nigeria
• Olutunde Solomon ADESIJI
• School of Architecture, Planning and Landscaping,
  University of Newcastle upon Tyne NE 1 7RU,
  Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

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ABSTRACT
This paper takes a look at architectural
education in Nigeria. It examines its historical
development, and its relevance to Nigerias
national needs. The paper asserts that the
curriculum of architectural education in Nigeria
has, over the years, been developed in relation
with local conditions with due emphasis placed on
national needs and aspirations. The paper
asserts that architecture plays a critical role
in improving the quality of the built
environment, and thus architectural education has
a definite role to play in its achievement. It
further asserts that due to rapid urbanisation in
Nigeria, the quality of the environment has been
grievously vitiated. This, it opines, requires
major shifts in areas of emphasis of the
curriculum in equipping students with necessary
skills and knowledge to resolve the environmental
problems emerging in the country.   Keywords
architecture, curriculum, development, education,
environment.
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INTRODUCTION

Architectural education began in Nigeria in 1952.
The Nigerian College of Arts, Science and
Technology, in which was the first school of
architecture, graduated its first set of students
in 1961. The graduates were awarded the Diploma
in architecture, which exempted them from Parts I
and II of RIBA (Royal Institute of British
Architects) examination, and it permitted them to
take the final examination. In 1962 the College
was upgraded into a University and the programme
was restructured for the award of Bachelor of
Architecture. This period (1952-1962) is the
first of three distinguishable periods of
architectural education in Nigeria (Uji, 2001).
The only school of architecture in Nigeria then
was established and run by the British and they
almost completely formed the faculty.  

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Four schools of architecture came on stream
between 1963 and 1979. In the period architects
from Eastern and Western Europe dominated the
faculty of the schools. This is the second
period of architectural education in Nigeria,
which Uji (2001) referred to as the semi-colonial
period of experimentation. Since 1979 fourteen
schools of architecture have been established in
the country with the faculty dominated by
Nigerians. It is the third period.  The
curriculum of architectural education in Nigeria
has, in the three periods, been a subject of
critical debate in several fora on its continued
relevance to Nigerias national needs. Its
historical background as a curriculum modeled
after the British and/or American pattern and
thus the Beaux-Arts tradition, has generated
calls for reviews to meet local yearnings and
needs, and social and cultural exigencies. 
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introduction contd
The growth of architectural education in the
country in its fifty years of existence has
witnessed the development of various ideas, and
philosophies by the different schools of
architecture in their efforts to making
architectural education reflect local and
national aspiration. The schools of architecture
are however guided in their programme design by
the general framework provided by the National
Universities Commission (NUC) in the country.

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• 2. Architectural Education In Nigeria
  historical review

The establishment of the Nigeria College of Arts,
Science and Technology in 1952 led to the birth
of architectural education in Nigeria. The
college was located at Ibadan, the capital of the
then Western Region of Nigeria. It was relocated
to Zaria in Northern Nigeria in 1955. The first
set of Diploma students graduated in 1961.  In
1962 the college was upgraded to a full-fledged
University, named Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
The course programme was restructured and
graduates were awarded the Bachelor of
Architecture degree, which had the same link as
the earlier Diploma with RIBA. The link with
RIBA was maintained till 1968, when the course
programme was again restructured, into two-tier,
with the offer of the Bachelor of Science (B.Sc)
and Master of Science (M.Sc) degrees in
architecture. The new programme took off in
1969.
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The University of Nigeria, which came into
existence in 1962, established a department of
architecture in 1963. The new department became
the second school of architecture in Nigeria. In
1970, a third school of architecture was
established in the University of Lagos.   At the
turn of the century in 1999 the number of
degree-awarding institutions in Nigeria had risen
to sixteen (ten Federal and six State
Universities). There were also nineteen
Polytechnics and Colleges of Technology awarding
National Diploma (ND) and/or the Higher National
Diploma (HND) (Arayela, 2000). Two state
universities (Kano and Ogun) and a private
institution (Covenant University) have since
established three additional degree-awarding
schools of architecture (Table 1).  
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TABLE 1 Degree-Awarding Schools of Architecture
in Nigeria
TABLE 1 Degree-Awarding Schools of Architecture
in Nigeria  
TABLE 1 Degree-Awarding Schools of Architecture
in Nigeria  
Source Field Survey, 2005.    
Source Field Survey, 2005.
Source Field Survey, 2005.    
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3. Curriculum Of Architectural Education
The quality of the human habitat is central to
architecture, and thus the goal of architectural
education is to contribute to the attainment of a
humane and responsive environment. In this
endeavour schools of architecture strive to equip
students with the education required to make them
contribute to the promotion of an orderly
development of the human environment. The
programme of study leads to the production of
professionals who are sensitive to human needs
and aspirations, have the requisite knowledge and
the intellectual and aesthetic skills to evolve
expressive design solutions of problems of the
built environment. They have the professional
skills required for effective shaping,
re-ordering and articulation of the built
environment.  
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• The goal of architectural education is subsumed
  in the general concept of education, which is to
  prepare people to improve and perpetuate their
  society. This is achieved by taking due
  cognizance of the societys political, social and
  economic circumstances in the design of the
  educational programme.
• Architectural programme in Nigeria was designed,
  at the onset, to meet the challenges of modern
  architecture. The programme has faced challenges
  in the last fifty years for it to be relevant to
  Nigerias national needs and aspirations, as well
  as meet current technological developments
  (Olotuah, 2000). Adeyinka (1981) has succinctly
  shown that education must be consciously enlisted
  to serve national needs, and indeed education is
  an instrument of power on which national survival
  depends.

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• The objectives of the educational programmes in
  Nigeria, as stipulated in the 3rd National
  Development Plan provide a general framework
  within which architectural education in Nigeria
  is focused. These include (FGN, 1975)

• Consolidating and developing the nations system
  of higher education in response to the economys
  manpower needs
• Rationalizing the financing of education with a
  view to making the educational system more
  adequate and efficient and
• Making an impact in the area of technological
  education so as to meet the growing needs of
  the economy.
• Reforming the content of general education to
  make it more responsive to the socio-economic
  needs of the country
•  

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The objectives of architectural education in
Nigeria to a large extent reflect this national
aspiration. These objectives stress the
importance of research opportunities appropriate
to the development of national resources and
technological skills in meeting emerging national
demands.   The curriculum contents and specific
subjects of study of schools of architecture in
Nigeria are selected from the minimum standards
stipulated by the countrys National Universities
Commission (NUC). There are over a hundred
different course titles from which each school of
architecture draws its programmes.

• These courses are however categorized into seven
  instruction modules namely
• Architectural Design
• Arts and Drawing
• Historical and Theoretical Studies
• Building Systems Technology
• Humanities and Social Studies
• Environmental Control System and
• Physical Sciences.

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The NUC recommends the spread of these modules
and their credit units over a 6-year period
within a 2-tier structure. Greater emphasis is
placed on the architectural design module than
the other modules, and thus more than 40 of the
required credits for the degrees are earned in
the studio. This is informed by the centrality
of the design studio to the entire architectural
educational programme. The design studio is the
hub and nucleus of the programme since all
learnings in architecture are geared towards
imparting into students skills they require in
proffering solutions to problems of the built
environment (Olotuah, 2000). The design studio
is aimed at developing in students the awareness
and skills they require in identifying
architectural function, purpose, and meaning,
which are then translated into appropriate
designed settings. As the key integrative unit of
the architecture programme, the design studio
offers the unique opportunity of imparting
cultural values into students and expanding the
horizon of their world-view (Olotuah, 2002).
Students have the opportunity to appreciate the
great varieties of Nigerian traditional
architecture, and their richness in content and
form. Architectural education has thus fostered
national unity in spite of the nations immense
diversity in the cultures of its people.
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4. Future Growth

• Nigeria has experienced phenomenal changes since
  the establishment of the first school of
  architecture in the country in 1952. There have
  been growth and development in various spheres of
  human endeavours. Programmes of architectural
  education have undergone a number of changes to
  cope with these. 
• Further challenges are staring architectural
  education in the face with increasing complexity
  in the nations socio-economic circumstances.
  Nigeria has experienced rapid urbanisation in
  recent years, which has led to an upsurge in the
  population growth of urban centres. Urbanisation
  in Nigeria has been described as
  socio-economically handicapped, because there is
  no concomitant, and commensurate change in the
  social and technological development in the urban
  centres (Onibokun, 1985 Salau, 1992). The
  resultant effects of the urbanisation process in
  Nigeria have been severe degradation of the urban
  environment, shortages in housing units, and
  decay in urban infrastructure and services
  (Olotuah, 2005). Deterioration in housing
  situation in urban centres has become a visible
  feature of urbanisation in the country. This has
  led to severe overcrowding in inadequate
  buildings (Okoko, 2001) and generation of slum
  conditions.

• .

 
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• The Nigerian architect is faced with these
  multi-faceted urban problems. Alongside these
  are also problems encountered in the rural areas,
  particularly poor quality of housing.
  Architectural education in the country has to
  rise to the challenge of equipping students with
  the knowledge and skills for solving the
  problems. It has to foster the students
  creativity and strengthen their interest,
  motivation and commitment to improve the
  environment. Within the general framework
  provided by the Nigerian National University
  Commission major shifts have to be made towards
  emphasizing courses in Humanities and Social
  Studies, and Historical and Theoretical Studies.
  
•  The paucity of facilities, and
  architect-educators to implement the curriculum
  in architecture schools in the country has been
  identified as the greatest difficulty faced by
  architectural education in Nigeria (Adeyemi,
  1996). In order for architectural programmes to
  meet their set objectives skillful and qualified
  architects have to be employed to teach. They
  will also be engaged in research through which
  they will make original contributions to the
  development of an improved theoretical basis for
  architecture. The curriculum in architecture,
  though studio-based, should inculcate
  considerable research input into its postgraduate
  programme in order to prepare graduate students
  for a productive academic career.

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Computer-Aided Design (CAD) has made tremendous
inroads into architectural practice in Nigeria.
Studies have shown that less than 30 of Nigerian
architects learnt the use of CAD software during
their course of architectural study (Olotuah,
2004). This is because most schools of
architecture in Nigeria have not integrated
computer-aided design and drafting into their
programmes. Architectural education in Nigeria
has to embrace Computing and Information
Technology fully to be more relevant in the
practice of contemporary architecture. Research
in architectural computing should be encouraged,
and collaboration can be formed with such
international organizations as eCAADe (Education
and Research in Computer-Aided Architectural
Design in Europe), ACADIA (Association of
Computer-Aided Design in Architecture), SIGraDi
(Seceded Iberoamericana de Grafica Digital),
CAADRIA (Computer-Aided Architectural Design
Research in Asia), and CAADFutures Foundation.
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5. Conclusion

• This paper focuses attention on architectural
  education in Nigeria, its historical development
  and curriculum design. It discusses the goal of
  architectural education within the context of the
  Nigerian National Educational objectives. The
  paper proffers recommendations on the improvement
  of architectural education to meet present
  national needs and future demands.

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6. References
Adeyemi, E.A. (1996) The Appropriate Direction
of Architectural Education in Africa Region
AARCHES J, the Journal of Association of
Architectural Educators in Nigeria, Vol. 1, No.
3, pp. 38-41.   Adeyemi, E.A. (2000) Lest We
Forget AARCHES J. Vol. 1 No. 3, pp
1-3.   Adeyinka, A.A. (1981) The Role of the
Teacher in Society Education and the Nigerian
Society, Obanya, P.A.I. (Ed.), Ibadan University
Press, pp. 118-133.   Arayela, O. (2000)
Clinical Management of Architects Education in
Nigeria The Way Forward in the Twenty-First
Century AARCHES J. Vol. 1, No. 5, pp
78-84.   Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN
(1975) Third National Development Plan,
1975-1980, Vol. 1, The Central Planning Office,
Federal Ministry of Economic Development, Lagos.
Okoko,  
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references contd
Okoko E.E. (2001) Residential Crowding and
Privacy in High- Density Neighbourhoods in Akure,
Nigeria Ife Social Sciences Review, Vol. 19 No.
1 pp 133-144.  Olotuah, A.O. (2000)
Architect-Educators and The Curriculum in
Architecture Roles and Expectations in the 21st
Century AARCHES J, Vol. 1 No. 5, pp.
29-32.  Olotuah, A.O. (2002) Architecture and
Cultural Sensibilities The Implications for
National Unity Arts and Social Sciences Forum
Journal, pp. 45-56.  Olotuah, A.O. (2004) The
Influence of Computer-Aided Design on
Architectural Practice in Nigeria Unpublished
Postgraduate Diploma Computer Science Thesis,
Federal University of Technology Akure,
Nigeria.  
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references contd

• Olotuah, A.O. (2005) Urbanisation, Urban
  Poverty, and Housing Inadequacy Proceedings of
  Africa Union of Architects Congress, 23-28 May,
  Abuja, Nigeria, pp. 185-199.
• Onibokun, A.G. (1985) Housing Finance in
  Nigeria A Critical Survey of Private and
  Public Services Housing in Nigeria, Onibokun A.
  G. (Ed.) Nigerian Institute for Social and
  Economic Research (NISER), Ibadan, Nigeria pp
  199-219.
• Salau, A.T. (1992) Urbanisation and Spatial
  Strategies in West Africa Cities and
  Development in the Third World, Potter R.B. and
  Salau A.T. (eds.), Mansell Publishing Ltd,
  London, pp. 157-171.
•  Uji, Z.A. (2001) Beyond the Critiques of the
  Curriculum of Architectural Education in
  Nigeria Architects and Architecture in Nigeria,
  A Tribute to Prof. E.A. Adeyemi, Nkwogu, U.O.
  (Ed.), Book of Readings, Association of
  Architectural Educators in Nigeria, pp.
  109-122.