By Dan Amor
A breezy and cheering news
item on page 38 of The Authority (Daily) of
Monday January 4, 2016, made my day. Titled, "NUC targets more private
varsities", the report, quoting the Executive Secretary of the National
Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, circulated that the
Commission would ensure that more private universities are established in the
country in the near future.
Indeed, Prof. Okojie must
be commended for the quantum leap his tenure as Executive Secretary of NUC has
brought to the university system in Nigeria . With a paltry 73
universities (both public and private) in the country upon assumption of office
in August 2006, Okojie, a scholar of international repute and professor of
forestry, has grown the number of universities in Nigeria to 141 in less than a decade.
That Nigeria
with a population of about 170 million already has a total number of 141
universities is not even encouraging as this is not enough to meet the
yearnings and aspirations of our teeming youths for tertiary education.
According to a recent
study, the United Kingdom
with a population of about 60 million has 120 universities while the United States of America
with a population of about 260 million has 345 universities. India , with a population of about 1.5 billion
people has 398 universities while Australia with 17 million people
has 36 universities. It is against this backdrop that I support the
establishment of more private universities in Nigeria .
In 1999, the Federal
Government licensed the establishment of four private universities namely, Heritage University
in Kaduna ; Igbinedion
University at Okada ,
Benin City; Babcock University
at Remo, Ogun State ,
and Madonna University
in Onitsha , Anambra State .
This was a step in the right direction. Also, in 2003, the National
Universities Commission (NUC) approved the establishment of more private
universities, among which are: Bowen University , Iwo ; Covenant University ,
Ota, Ogun State ;
Redeemers University ,
Ede , Osun
State . Besides a few
private universities that had existed before such as Benson
Idahosa University , Benin
City; Pan African (now Pan Atlantic) University, etcetera, we now have new ones
including Bells University of Technology; Lead City University ; several newly established
State universities and the 13 new Federal universities established in one fell
swoop by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.