More universities, less admission for students

updated: Thursday 18-06-2009

Prof Dibu Ojerinde, JAMB registrarThe increase in the number of universities in the country with the licensing of private universities has not translated into more slots for students who seek university admission. SULAIMON OLANREWAJU, in this piece, looks at the factors responsible for this.

At the close of the 2003/2004 academic se-ssion, there were just seven private universities in the country. They are Babcock University, Ilishan, Igbinedion University, Okada, Bowen University, Iwo, Madonna University, Okija, Pan African University, Lagos, Benson Idahosa University, Benin and Covenant University, Ota. Since then, the number of private universities in the country has risen to 35. So, added to the 27 federal and 34 state universities, there are altogether a total of 97 universities in the country. However, there has not been a commensurate increase in the number of students offered admission by these universities.

According to Professor Dibu Ojerinde, Registrar/Chief Executive, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), who delivered a keynote address at the fourth convocation ceremony of Covenant University, Ota, last week, of the 1,043,361 students that applied for admission in 2003, only 108,148 representing 10.40 per cent were offered admission. In 2004, only 125,673 students, representing 13.10 per cent of the 962,133 students who sought admission to Nigerian universities were able to gain admission. The case was worse in 2005 as only 107,161 representing 10.40 per cent of the 1,030,670 candidates that applied for admission actually secured admission into Nigerian universities. In 2006, of the 893,259 students that applied, only 106,304 (11.90 per cent) were able to gain admission. Of the 1,028,988 that applied for admission in 2007, just 129,525 (12.59 per cent) eventually got admitted. In 2008, 175,358 (14.96 per cent) of the 1,172,313 that applied were able to secure admission.

The import of this is the impact of private universities in increasing university education to Nigerians has been very limited. This is in contradistinction of the arguments for the establishment universities. The government had said an upswing in the number of private universities would lead to an increase in the number of students to be enrolled in universities. But this has not been the case.

Commenting on this development, Professor ‘Deremi Abubakre, Vice Chancellor, Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, attributed this to the limited capacity of private universities which he blamed on the government.

“The Federal Government is having ambivalent attitude towards university education in the country,” Abubakre said. According to Abubakre, private universities were established to help the government achieve its objective in educating the citizenry and therefore should be assisted by the government to accomplish this.

“The government should come to the aid of private universities. By doing this, the government will actually be helping the citizens to get education. At the moment, there is little that private universities can do to increase access because of the limitations they have with their carrying capacities. Unless the carrying capacities of private universities are increased, through financial assistance by the Federal Government, the situation may not change,” Abubakre said.

The vice chancellor added that the federal government assistance should be extended to all the universities in the country including state ones. Giving an analogy of fertilizer distribution, Abubakre said the government did not usually discriminate between private and public companies when distributing fertilizers to them.

He also said that the act establishing Education Trust Fund (ETF), Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) should be amended to enable them offer assistance to privately-owned universities.

Though Professor Isaac Adeyemi, Vice Chancellor, Bells University of Technology, Ota, agreed that private universities should be assisted by the government, he said the assistance should be restricted to the area of infrastructure.

According to him, private universities are not really money spinners. “Before a private university could begin to make profit, it would have existed for at least 15 years. So, the government can assist within the first 10 years with the provision of infrastructure.”

Commenting on why the increase in the number of private universities has not led to an upswing in the number of students admitted, Adeyemi said, the primary reason was that private universities charged fees which many parents would not want to pay to educate their children.

“Even if there are vacancies in private universities, because some parents would not want to pay fees in universities, they would not take advantage of the opportunity,” he said.

Another reason given by the vice chancellor was that many private universities were not interested in having too many students to ensure that they offered qualitative education.

Citing the example of his own university, he said the plan was to have a maximum of 5,000 students. “With that plan, we have to be careful how we admit. We cannot just throw open our doors to everybody because we are interested in providing qualitative education,” he said.

The submission of Adeyemi tallied with the observation of Professor Francis Egbokhare, Director, Distance Learning Centre, University of Ibadan. According to Egbokhare, private universities would be helpful in improving standards but not increasing access.

Egbokhare said, “Private universities are meant to cater for the education need of children of the rich not the children of the poor.” He added that the government should not venture into helping private universities with money or infrastructure because the government had not been able to properly finance public universities.

“Government funding private universities will be contrary to the original intention. The government should first properly fund its own universities,” Egbokhare said. He, however, said government could establish a competitive grant system, which the private university could access.

Speaking on increasing access to university education, Egbokahre said the best way to ensure this is through open distance learning system. Citing the example of Indira Ghandi University in India, Egbokhare said the university had been able to enrol 2.4 million students through its open learning system. He also cited the example of the University of South Africa, which he said had over 300,000 students.

“If the government is sincere about increasing access to university education in Nigeria, the best way to go about it is through the open learning system. Through this, we will be able to mop up those who are not admitted into the university through the regular system. The only thing is that the NUC (National Universities Commission) has to be strengthened to ensure parity in the quality of students of regular and open distance learning.”