A university system is that institution which operates at the tertiary level of the country’s educational system. Regarding which level of government should run a university system, the Nigerian constitution places university education on the concurrent list; implying that both the federal and the state governments can establish and run a university.
We believe that the future of this nation lies with the private universities. When we say some of them are fledgling, it is because they will suffer from the pain of just beginning a programme, which forms the fulcrum of the issue.
The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday in Abuja approved the issuance of provisional licences for the establishment of seven new private universities in the country. Nigeria currently has 96 universities, comprising 27 federal, 35 state and 34 private universities.
The emergence of Nigerian private universities is seen as an attempt for marketization. There are concerns over the quality of such universities, their lecturers and students. Rarely producing research, private university owners are charged with being interested only in profit, targeting admissions with high tuition and fees.
Chairman, Governing Council of the Lagos City Polytechnic, Ikeja, Mr. Babatunde Odufuwa has called on government at all levels to put necessary administrative structures in place to grant aids to students in private tertiary institutions in the country.
The article discusses Covenant University in a town outside Lagos, Nigeria. As a privately run, Christian university, it breaks with a Nigerian tradition of free public higher education. The demand among Nigerian youth for higher education is beyond what the state can provide, leaving an opening for private institutions.
The House of Representatives has called on the National Universities Commission to regulate the role of visiting lecturers in Nigerian universities. This followed a motion on Wednesday sponsored by Abbas Tajudeen (Kaduna APC). Arguing the motion, Mr. Tajudeen stated that many universities, especially state-owned and private ones, rely too much on the services of either visiting or sabbatical lecturers. “This reliance poses a great challenge to quality of services rendered by the lecturers with regards to mentoring, research, publication of journals and the general academic wellbeing in the universities,” he said. Mr. Tajudeen said he was concerned that the situation affects the quality of education being provided owing to the fact that lecturers usually abandon their duties in their places of primary employment and spread their services thinly across other universities that they visit. “The activities of those visiting lecturers are not regulated by any supervisory or academic body, either to ensure compliance with their terms of engagement or limit the number of commitments they engage in to ensure quality education in Nigeria,” the lawmaker added. Contributing to the debate, Nicholas Ossai (Delta-PDP) however expressed a contrary view, stating that visiting lectureship is a universal practice and that lecturers use the medium to develop themselves and the students. “It does not make sense for us to prohibit what is acceptable internationally,” Mr. Ossai said. But when the motion was put to vote, it was accepted by the majority of the house. The speaker thus mandated the committee on Tertiary Education and Services to interface with the National Universities Commission and other relevant agencies concerned with tertiary education with a view to formulating policies to aid the regulation and supervision of the practice of visiting lectureship in Nigeria and report back within eight weeks for further legislative action.