•Prof Chinwe Obaji
Former Minister of Education, Professor Chinwe Obaji, has commended the federal government’s recent ban imposed on the establishment of new federal-owned universities in the country, calling on various state governments to place the same ban in their respective states.
Obaji stated this during an exclusive interview with our correspondent while speaking on the ban on the establishment of new higher institutions by the federal government, reports Nigerian Tribune.
According to her, truly there is no need for the establishment of a new public university at both federal and state levels at this time and even private universities as well.
She explained: “Nigeria at the moment has no fewer than 286 universities both public and private with many of them having low students’ enrolment and academic staff, among other challenges.
“The issue is that every lawmaker at both the National Assembly and various state assemblies are putting up Bill canvassing for the establishment of one university or the other in their villages without bothering about their viability.
“It is because education is not on the exclusive list that the minister only spoke about the federal-owned universities and banning the establishment of news one for the next seven years.This is a welcome development. The state governments should do the same and this should also extend to the private sector.
“The fact that Nigeria has a high number of students sitting for UTME each year doesn’t mean that many of them are actually tertiary education materials.”
Referencing what happened in 2005 when she was the minister, Obaji said: “We had 75 universities in the country that time and we determined the carrying capacity of the universities.
“In a particular year, based on the carrying capacities of the universities then, we found out that we could admit about 148,000 students out of about 1.3 million who sat UTME seeking admission to the 75 universities.
“We asked the universities to conduct post-UTME so as to ascertain those who are truly eligible for admission among the candidates. At the end of the post-UTME screening tests, their results were sent back to the ministry and we found out that only about 80 percent of that number was actually fit for admission.
“That is why it’s better we grow the existing universities and allow them to thrive before we start thinking of establishing new ones, if they will eventually be needed,” she concluded.
