Of the total 197 universities in Nigeria, 98 are public while 99 are privately owned.
But despite the fact that private universities are more, they account for a little over five percent of total students’ enrolment, while the public universities account for the bulk of almost 95 percent.
Analysts are of the view that the poor students’ enrolment in private universities has to do with affordability. Average tuition fees asides other payments in private universities in Nigeria are between N600,000 and N1.3 million. In some public universities, however, the tuition is as low as N50,000, depending on the course entered for. According to the National Universities Commission (NUC), there are 2.1 million university students currently.
“We have only 2.1 million university students and only five percent are accounted for in the 99 private universities,” said Abubakar Rasheed, the executive secretary of the NUC at the presentation of strategic documents approving the upgrade of three institutions in Delta State to universities, to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, in Abuja, on Friday.
The approved universities are the Delta State University, Agbor; Denis Osadebe University, Asaba and the Delta State University of Science and Technology, Ozoro, in addition to already existing Delta State University.
With this development, Delta State now has the highest number of public universities in the country. The state has two federal universities: Nigerian Maritime University, Okerenkoko and Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, bringing to six the number of universities in Delta.
Rasheed, at the presentation of letter of recognition, charged Okowa to provide sustainable financial resources for the survival of the universities.
“Today, Delta State with this three will have four state universities, making it the state with the highest number of public universities in the country. It is something worth celebrating. We advise the governor to kindly make the universities to serve the purpose they are created for by providing sustainable funding.
“With this, we now have 197 universities in the country, 98 of them are public universities, and 99 of them are private. The total enrolment in the 99 private universities is slightly over five percent of the total enrolment in the university system. So we need governors who are education-friendly to come up with this initiative and to follow it up with concrete plans and arrangements for the success of the universities so established,” he said.Loading…
Governor Okowa said the rapid increase in demand for degree programmes necessitated the upgrade of the institutions. He said that the Delta State University, Abraka, had over stretched its capacity, noting that there was need for the universities to broaden the knowledge of learners.
