THE INDISPENSABILITY OF CRITICAL THINKING AND MORAL-LEADERSHIP IN MANAGEMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Among the disheartening experiences in management of higher education in Nigeria are lack of critical thinking and moral-leadership. Higher education in Nigeria has been characterissed by gross neglect on the part of government and their educational agencies. This has often triggered incessant strikes by various academic and non-teaching unions thereby leading to untold hardship on the part of lecturers, non-teaching staff and students, and often result in graduation of some of the students ‘half-baked’. It is no longer news that some of the graduates from various institutions of higher learning in Nigeria can hardly make a correct statement devoid of error literally or colloquially. This paper, which employs the method of critical analysis, suggests that, in order to achieve the desired transformation in the education sector, all the stakeholders in education and various agencies of government, management and leadership of higher institutions, and students themselves must acquaint themselves with critical thinking skills and good moral conduct. Some scholars have added their voices for the enhancement of educational management and leadership in Nigeria, but this study goes much further to show that without moral-leadership that is symbolically embedded in critical thinking, the Nigerian higher education will remain in ‘limbo’ in perpetuity. It is on that basis that this research suggests critireligiously-moral-leadership among the criteria that must be met by those that are appointed as administrators and stakeholders in education sector in Nigeria either as minister of education or heads of various higher institutions of learning and their collaborators