Director: Daniel C. Levy

New Private Universities in Nigeria

(Entry by Daniel C. Levy)

PROPHE Summary:
With licenses from the National Universities Commission, Nigeria is moving ahead with 8 new private universities, chosen from more than 200 applicants, and bringing the country’s private count to 32. The licensing is provisional and the government cautions against improper practices, underscoring the need to comply with official regulations. For example, universities that announce student graduations too soon from now will have shown that they had already been operating prior to licensing. At the same time, the education ministry has pledged increased funding for the country’s 27 federal universities (there are also 30 state universities).

For the full story, see Business Day, May 17, 2006, "New private universities get licences," by John Onah, Abuja. http://www.businessdayonline.com/?c=44&a=13342

PROPHE Observation:
Nigeria continues to take a leadership position in Africa’s surging private higher education. The government assumes a common dual posture: on the one hand it facilitates private growth, essential to meeting demand; on the other hand it highlights its concern and firmness when it comes to shoddy private operation. It appears that it is quite hard and arguably somewhat counter-productive to block private growth, so public policy thus concentrates on regulation. Government’s simultaneous pledge to bolster federal university funding can likewise be seen as an effort to placate public universities’ and citizens’ jaundiced view of the private university sector.