A high demand for tertiary education in Nigeria is rapidly expanding its scope of university proprietorship.
Fuelled primarily by its growing youth population, the demand is, regrettably, encouraged by the huge emphasis on paper qualification and a policy mishap that has allowed a yawning dichotomy between university degrees and polytechnic higher national diplomas in work placements at the nation’s civil service.
Over the years, the inability of existing universities in the country to meet this demand has resulted in a backlog of admission seekers and an exodus of young Nigerians to institutions abroad, with associated capital flight calculated in billions of dollars.
Coupled with the incessant strikes by lecturers of public universities in Nigeria, a natural market was created for private universities when the country liberalised ownership of universities in 1999, a policy that has continued to generate more investments in the subsector.
On Friday, June 9, 2023, Nigeria’s regulatory body for all universities and degree-awarding institutions, the National Universities Commission, NUC, licensed a total of 37 new private universities, bringing the total number of private universities in the country to 148.
Although the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has accused the Federal Government of arbitrariness on approvals and issuance of licenses to new universities, the argument about opening up access for teeming Nigerian youths to university education remains tenable.
However, despite surpassing both federal and state universities in number, the patronage of private universities by Nigerian students remains very low.
According to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, the 2020/2021 admissions revealed that 405,256 admission quotas were not filled by institutions.
JAMB said a total of 601,775 admission quotas were made available to universities; with federal universities having 259,292 quotas, state universities 221,545 and private universities 120,938 quotas.
Apparently, private universities need to work on their attraction to admission seekers. Students are usually attracted to universities with an academic track record in courses of their interest. The failure of some private universities to pursue academic excellence will gradually render them irrelevant and unattractive to Nigerian students.
Established on the assumption of viability to provide access and pursue academic excellence, some of the institutions have rather assumed an elitist posture with high tuition and associated charges that are practically unaffordable for majority of Nigerian youths.
Apart from their inability to fill their admission quotas, some private universities are underfunded, rely on part-time and visiting lecturers, and unable to compete favourably in academic research among others.
Regulatory bodies must properly monitor academic activities of these universities to ensure compliance with appropriate guidelines provided by the National Universities Commission.
While the licensing agency has continuously cautioned against running a university for profit, the attraction the subsector exudes for investors baffles everyone.
From the establishment of just Babcock University, Igbinedion University and Madonna University in 1999, the figure has risen to 148 private universities in 2023.
From their antecedents, the average public office holder in Nigeria has no defined motive of bequeathing any academic legacy other than an investor’s outlook. The NUC must, therefore, watch out for profit-driven universities masquerading as citadels of learning and slam sanctions where necessary.
Part of efforts to improve the patronage of Nigerian private universities and curtail the exodus of Nigerian students from the country must be to revisit entry requirements into Nigerian universities especially for certain courses. Even the NUC has identified stringent admission policy and restricted quota as the two major factors that are responsible for the increasing number of Nigerians pursuing education abroad, some in very substandard institutions.
In 2022, it was estimated that Nigerian students spent £1.93 billion on tuition, rent, health insurance, and other costs in the United Kingdom alone. A breakdown of the sum shoed that the number of school fees and taxes paid by working spouses of students was estimated to be £680,620,000 and £54.3 million, respectively. Nigerian students also paid rent of £408.37 million, national insurance of £151.26 million, and health insurance of £41.7 million.
Private university owners are therefore encouraged not only to fund infrastructure, but also academic research and innovation, carve a niche for the institutions in their specialised areas; as well as train their academics to sharpen their grant-winning writing skills to compete with other universities globally for research funding.
