Stakeholders have expressed worry about the inadequate carrying capacity of existing public tertiary institutions, whilst private universities consistently struggle to fill admission quotas because of high tuition prices.
This anomaly came to light this week when the Minister of Education, Prof. Mamman Tahir, announced that only 20% (380,000) of the over 1.9 million candidates who took the ongoing 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) would be offered admission into universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education across the country.
The examination commenced on April 19 and is expected to end on April 29, 2024.
The minister, in his comment on the limited spaces available for admission into the nation’s tertiary institutions, said skills acquisition remains a critical component in preparing the youths for a brighter future.
“It is not a question of being employed, but how many will be admitted from this set. Overall, I think the figure is about 20 per cent – universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.
“The question you ask is where the 80 percent are? They are our children, our wards living with us.
“This is why the issue of skills acquisition is important because any student who is not able to proceed to tertiary education should have a meaningful life even after secondary school, even primary education,” he had said.
In his reaction to the minister’s statement, Comrade Hassan Taiwo, the Coordinator of the Education Rights Congress (ERC), attributed the challenge as the retribution for successive government’s failure to adequately fund the sector and long negligence.
He said: “It is retribution for government failure to fund public education adequately and invest in the expansion of faculties in tertiary schools.
“Now, with the planned take-off of the student loan policy, funding to public education will be reduced even further.
“We demand proper funding of public education and democratic management of schools as the panacea to inadequate admission space.”
Speaking on capacity, Peter Okebukola, Distinguished Professor of Science and Computer Education at the Lagos State University and a former Head, Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC), agres that the size of the task facing the Nigerian government is huge.
“With more than two million candidates striving to fill about 750,000 available spaces in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, the challenge of opening the doors for more to enter the higher education system and ensure that quality graduates come out of it in the face of resource handicaps is stark,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor of Anchor University, Lagos, Professor Oye Bandele, expressed worry at the revelation, saying the desire to admit more must not be at the detriment of quality training.
According to him, “It is neither here nor there. On the part of the government, if they are concerned that only 20 percent can secure admission, will the government be ready to give the go-ahead for the universities to admit more amidst inadequate facilities?
“On the other side, many existing universities do not have the resources to admit all or the capacity to enrol more than they accommodate.
“Will the government allow public and private universities to just populate the existing institutions just to absorb other candidates who passed, but cannot gain admission for learning?
“Admitting more without adequate arrangements will put more pressure on existing facilities if institutions fail to increase their capacity.
“On the side of the institutions, they cannot just increase enrolment figures. The need to adequately train the student is paramount and not negotiable.”
He called on the government to increase the capacity of technical institutions and skills training centres to enrol more and make the centres more attractive to parents and candidates.
He added: “The government must be ready to pump more funds into the education system, put more attention to funding, and increase the infrastructure, capacity of all levels of existing tertiary institutions.”
