NUC raises alarm over ‘black market’ universities

Yinka Oladoyinbo, Akure - 05.05.2008

The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, has raised the alarm over what he called the offering of university education in the black market.

He said many of the admission seekers in the country eventually acquired education from the “black market” as they attend unapproved centres for their tertiary education.

Okojie stated this in Akure, Ondo State, while declaring open a retreat organised for the senior staff of Achievers University, Owo. According to the NUC boss, the problem in the nation’s university system was being compounded by many of the first generation universities that had set up unapproved centres to admit students that could not pass the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) examination.

He said a foremost federal university in the southwest had 13 unapproved centres while another had six unapproved centers, with about 81, 000 students enrolments.

Okojie also accused some state universities of contributing to the problem of education in the country, saying that many of them had more part time students than the regular ones. Besides, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture , Abeokuta, added that many of the universities had lost focus on which they were established.

He stated that many of the specialised universities like the Universities of Technology and that of Agriculture had lost focus and had deviated from the objective for which they were set up.