NUC tasks north on private varsities
The northern part of the country is lagging behind in number of privately owned universities established in the country, Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed said.
He said with 68 private universities in the country, only fifteen (15) are located in the North while the remaining are in the southern parts of the country.
The North West despite being one of most populated region has one (1) private university, North East has two (2) universities, North Central, South East and South -South each have twelve (12) universities while South West has 30.
Prof. Rasheed said the NUC is currently processing about 242 applications from organizations and individuals for the establishment of more private universities in Nigeria.
He stated this yesterday when the Board of Directors of Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust titles and Aminiya paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.
He also disclosed that before the end of 2017, there is a possibility of 30 or more private universities gaining approval.
Prof Rasheed maintained that Nigeria needs more private universities to cater for the number of candidates seeking university education. He said the biggest challenge in establishing more universities is inadequate trained and qualified personnel.
He further said one area the commission is working on is identifying and reforming the post graduate training in Nigeria, saying, a situation where students take a maximum of 15 years for a PhD will not help the system to produce the adequate staff.
He berates the aspect of sending lecturers abroad to train for PhD, using TETFund, “to train one PhD abroad now will cost nearly 50 million naira, if you take the TETfund money to send 200 people abroad, there is added risk that 100 will not return,” he said.