Education in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. The present standard is at its lowest level. Good enough, the Christian private universities have contributed, in no small measure, to the raising of the standard. However, we should ask ourselves if these private universities are meeting the needs of those who really want to acquire qualitative education but are limited financially?
The advent of private universities in Nigeria was considered a welcome development for the simple reason that the public universities had become anything but centres for excellence. Aside the endless strikes by the lecturers and the non-academic staff which sometimes lasted as long as one academic session, the neglect of federal and state universities by successive governments has also resulted in a situation in which students of these universities were never certain as to the number of years they would spend for their degrees.
Students of tertiary institutions under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) yesterday staged a protest in Ado- Ekiti against the prolonged strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
University students in Ekiti State, on Thursday, threatened to vent their anger over the lingering impasse between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on the private universities ina the country.
I have spent the last couple of months acquainting myself with the goings on in our private universities. The (recent) and still unresolved strike by academic staff in our public universities, and government's pussyfooting over the lecturers' gravamen ensures that public universities have fallen off the radar of most parents/guardians looking to advance their children/wards' education.
Nigerian university students have united under the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and have protested in the streets of Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State’s capital, demanding that the federal government yield to the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The Madonna University Alumni Association has urged the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to soft-pedal on its threat to massively clamp down on private universities in the country as a result of the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union, (ASUU).
FOR several years in Nigeria, public universities (both federal and state-owned) were the major sources of higher education. Especially, given the much talked-about disparity between products of the universities and polytechnics in the country over the years, the number of candidates gravitating towards universities kept increasing in geometrical terms.
Nigeria has 100 public and 30 private universities. A strike by lecturers has paralysed public institutions for the past three months, while teaching at private universities has continued. As a result, there has been a rush by parents with financial muscle to register their children in private universities, whose proprietors are smiling all the way to the bank.
Private universities in Nigeria have shown promising growth and could help retain the thousands of students who have in recent years spent billions of dollars studying abroad. However, to ensure that growth in post-secondary enrolment continues, the increase in the number of private institutions is being matched by increased government investment – part of a broader shift to expand the skilled labour pool.