The National Universities Commission said plans are being concluded to announce the establishment of two new universities in the country which will further bring the total number of institutions in the country to 272.
The commission’s acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, said this during an interaction with journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
Maiyaki said the NUC would continue to approve new universities to cater for the admissions gap in the country.
He noted that while about two million candidates seek admission into universities every year, the total available quota for admission range between 500,000 and 700,000.
Maiyaki’s stance comes amidst the fight of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and other stakeholders in the tertiary education sub-sector against the proliferation of institutions in the country by the government at the Federal and State levels.
Stakeholders on numerous occasions said the establishment of new universities amidst poor funding of existing ones was not the way to go and hence had called on the government and the NUC to halt approvals given to new public universities.
“We have no choice but to as a matter of deliberate policy undertake the massification of universities,” Maiyaki said.
He said what separates the developed today from other countries is the level of investments in education.
The Executive Secretary said the commission is presently processing applications for the establishment of distance learning centres that will be monitored to provide quality education.
The NUC boss, however, stressed that it does not mean the era of establishing distance learning centres is back.
