Nigerian universities far from attaining world-class status ― Okebukola

Former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola, on Wednesday, said both private and public universities in the country, are far from attaining world-class status in higher education.

Okebukola disclosed this at the maiden convocation lecture of Chrisland University, Abeokuta, with the theme “Building a world-class University in Africa: The Role of  Private Universities”

The former NUC boss submitted that no Nigerian University is currently ranked among the world’s top 100 universities, saying a lot more needs to be done to achieve the feat.

He lamented lack of good learning facilities, low quality of teaching and research, inefficient governance and management in most of the institutions of higher learning in the country.

“The university education systems of Africa are currently not capable of responding fully to the immediate skill needs in the medium term. There are several impending factors.”

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“There is shortage of a critical mass of quality lecturers, insufficient sustainable financing, inappropriate governance and leadership, disconnect with the demands of the economy, and inadequate regional integration.”

“We have to tell ourselves the truth, Nigeria and Africa indeed still have a long way to go to attain world-class status in university education,” he said.

While commending the significant contributions of private universities to improving higher education, Okebukola called on the government for more support in the area of funding and physical infrastructure.

He said “Private universities have no doubt contributed significantly to human resource development in Nigeria. They have now become healthy competitors to public universities. It is also noteworthy that they teach better values.”

He, however, lauded the efforts of the NUC led by Prof Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, for revitalizing the  Nigerian University system and positioning them towards world-class status.

Okebukola charged the management of Chrisland University to take a cue from other leading universities in the world to attain world-class status.