The Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, has asserted that the number of universities in Nigeria cannot meet the present demand for higher education in the country.
He stated this in Abuja Tuesday while presenting operational licences for two new universities to Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, bringing the total number of universities in the country to 205.
He said despite the increasing number of private universities in Nigeria, they could only account for 5.06 per cent of students in the nation’s ivory towers, leaving the remaining 94 per cent in public universities.
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While trying to justify NUC’s decision to approve the University of Education, Ijanikin/Epe and the Lagos State University of Science and Technology, Rasheed said Lagos had been exceptional in the running of the Lagos State University for the past 39 years.
Earlier, Sanwo-Olu had said the new universities would provide massive opportunities for those seeking university education in the State.
Africa Today News, New York had last year reported that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on had warned the Federal Government not to go on with fresh plans of giving approvals for the creation of new universities in the country. This is in direct contrast to the new position held by the NUC.
The immediate past President and ex-officio of the union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, who gave the warning, pointing out that Nigeria does not by any reason need new universities.
He stressed that the best thing for the government to do is to focus on rehabilitation of the existing ones in order to deliver quality education to the people.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK