…Okays 9 new private varsities
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday imposed a seven-year embargo on the establishment of new federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Minister of Education, Mr Tunji Alausa, announced this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said the current challenge in Nigeria’s education sector is no longer about access to federal tertiary education but addressing the duplication of institutions which has led to significant deterioration in infrastructure and manpower.
“In our country, access to quality financial education is no longer an issue. What we are witnessing today is duplication of new federal tertiary institutions, a significant reduction in the current capacity of each institution, and degradation of both physical infrastructures and manpower.
“If we do not act decisively, it will lead to marked declines in educational quality and undermine the international respect that Nigerian graduates command,” he said.
He said the country has 72 federal universities, 108 state universities and 159 private universities.
He said the country has a sizable number of polytechnics, monotechnics, colleges of education, colleges of agriculture, colleges of health sciences, colleges of nursing and innovation and enterprise institutions.
He said the number of the tertiary institutions demonstrate an over-proliferation without corresponding demand or resource allocation.
The minister said there is a disconnect between the number of institutions and prospective students.
“For the 2024-2026 academic sessions, about 2.1 million young Nigerians applied to our tertiary institutions. However, 199 universities had fewer than 99 applicants, and remarkably, 34 universities had zero candidates applying at all.
“This worrying trend repeats itself in polytechnics and colleges of education too. In fact, 295 polytechnics had fewer than 99 applicants, and 219 colleges of education suffered similar fates, with 64 colleges receiving no applicants at all,” he said.
This, according to the minister, translates into wasted resources and inefficiencies.
He cited an example of a northern region where a federal university had fewer than 800 students but employed over 1,200 staff members.
“This is simply not sustainable,” Alausa said, stressing that many federal universities operated at suboptimal capacity while unnecessarily stretching government funding,” he said.
The minister said the moratorium on the establishment of new federal tertiary institutions is a decisive step to correct the inefficiencies in the sector.
He said the federal government plans to redirect resources toward upgrading the current institutions, improving physical infrastructure and manpower, and expanding the capacity of existing universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
“We need to improve the quality of our education system and increase the carrying capacity of our current institutions so that Nigerian graduates can maintain and enhance the respect they enjoy globally,” he said.
The minister thanked President Tinubu for his commitment and support for education reform in the country.
“The president fervently believes in providing every Nigerian with the highest quality of education, comparable anywhere in the world, and his dedication has been key in advancing these reforms,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Executive Council approved the establishment of nine new private universities.
Addressing concerns about a seeming contradiction, Alausa clarified that these universities’ applications were longstanding and part of a backlog within the National University Commission (NUC). “
Several of these applications have been in the pipeline for over six years, with investors having already built campuses and invested billions of Naira.
“Due to inefficiencies within the NUC, approvals were delayed. We have since introduced reforms to streamline these processes, and today’s approvals are a result of clearing this backlog.
“Today, 79 private university applications are active, and nine of these were approved this week,” he said. “Moving forward, the moratorium also applies to new private universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, ensuring no additional institutions are approved unless they comply with the new standards,” he said.
