Chris Maiyaki, the interim executive secretary of the commission, made this statement on Thursday while speaking with reporters in Abuja.
According to Maiyaki, the National Universities Commission will keep approving new colleges in order to close the nation’s admissions gap.
He pointed out that although two million applicants apply to institutions annually, there are only between 500,000 and 700,000 spots available for admission.
“You have to see the agony and the frustration on the faces of families who are doing everything in their power to get their kids into college every admissions session,” he remarked. We are forced to continue approving the institutions because it is extremely difficult and demanding for NUC and university executives.
Maiyaki’s position is in line with the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ and other tertiary education subsector stakeholders’ opposition to the government’s expansion of educational establishments throughout the nation at both the federal and state levels.
Stakeholders have repeatedly urged on the government and the NUC to stop approving new public universities, arguing that it is not the right idea to construct new institutions while existing ones are underfunded.
According to Maiyaki, “we have no choice but to massify universities as a matter of deliberate policy.” He claimed that the amount of money invested in education sets industrialized nations apart from developing nations.
“It has been decided to approve two more universities, bringing the total number of universities in the nation to 272; the announcement is scheduled for next week.”
He insisted that in order to meet its needs and provide high-quality education, Nigeria will keep expanding access to universities by authorizing new institutions.
He stated that efforts were being made to reposition the university system through transnational education by allowing foreign universities to come in and operate in the nation, even though he pointed out that nations with populations smaller than Nigeria, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and others, have more than 1,000 universities.
According to the Executive Secretary, applications for the creation of distant learning centers that will be overseen to deliver high-quality instruction are now being processed by the commission.
But the head of the NUC emphasized that this does not imply that the days of setting up distant learning centers are coming back.
