In a move to tackle Nigeria’s deteriorating tertiary education standards, President Bola Tinubu’s administration has announced an immediate seven-year moratorium on establishing new federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education across the country.
Thank you for reading this post; don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
The decision, unveiled by Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa following yesterday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, comes as alarming statistics reveal a higher education sector stretched to breaking point. Current data shows Nigeria operates 72 federal universities, 42 federal polytechnics, and 28 federal colleges of education, alongside numerous state and private institutions.
However, the expansion has come at a devastating cost to quality. For the 2024/2025 academic year, a staggering 199 universities received fewer than 100 applicants through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), with 34 institutions recording zero applications. The crisis extends beyond universities, with 295 polytechnics and 64 colleges of education reporting critically low or no student interest.
Dr. Alausa painted a stark picture of resource misallocation, citing one federal university with fewer than 800 students but employing over 1,200 staff members. “We have moved from addressing access to confronting a crisis of relevance and sustainability,” he told State House correspondents.
The minister pointed out that the proliferation of institutions has created what he termed “educational redundancy,” where resources are spread so thin that academic standards have plummeted. “Our graduates are increasingly unemployable because we’ve prioritised quantity over quality,” Dr. Alausa warned.
Under the new policy, aligned with President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the government will redirect resources toward upgrading existing institutions. Plans include massive infrastructure overhauls, comprehensive staff development programmes, and capacity-building initiatives designed to restore Nigeria’s universities to global competitiveness.
“The world has moved on while we’ve been busy multiplying institutions that produce graduates who struggle to compete internationally,” Dr. Alausa noted, highlighting the urgent need for educational reform to address Nigeria’s unemployment crisis.
In a parallel development, the FEC approved licences for nine new private universities from applications that had been pending at the National Universities Commission (NUC). These approvals, drawn from 79 active applications out of 551 inherited by the current administration, represent the final wave before similar restrictions may be applied to private institutions.
The government has already demonstrated its commitment to targeted investment, allocating ₦110 billion through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) specifically for 18 specialised health universities.
Public reaction remains divided, with education advocates praising the focus on quality improvement while critics express concerns about potential access limitations in underserved regions. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has yet to issue an official statement, though internal sources suggest conditional support if promised funding materialises.
Meanwhile, in December last year, the NUC had taken a different position, actively advocating for the establishment of more universities to address what it described as a critical access crisis. During a Senate Committee hearing on the proposed Federal University, Okigwe in Imo State, Acting Executive Secretary Chris Maiyaki noted that Nigeria’s 275 universities were insufficient to meet the overwhelming demand for higher education. He presented compelling statistics showing that approximately two million Nigerians seek university admission annually, yet only between 500,000 to 700,000 secure places, leaving over a million prospective students without access to tertiary education.
This earlier stance by the NUC, which focused primarily on expanding capacity to accommodate more students, now stands in sharp contrast to the current administration’s quality-over-quantity approach. While Maiyaki’s December 2024 request was likely borne out of the genuine challenge of educational access, the recent moratorium suggests the government has prioritised addressing the deeper issues of institutional sustainability and graduate employability over simply creating more admission slots.
AkweyaTV notes that in May alone, 11 new universities got their licence. They are New City University, Aiyetoro, Ogun State; Lens University, Ilemona, Kwara State; Kevin Ezeh University, Mgbowo, Enugu State; Southern Atlantic University, Uyo; University of Fortune, Igbotako, Ondo State; Minaret University, Ikirun, Osun State; and Abdulrasaq Abubakar Toyin University, Ganmo, Kwara State. Others are: Monarch University, Iyesi Ota, Ogun State; Tonnie Iredia University of Communication, Benin, Edo State; Isaac Balami University of Aeronautics and Management, Lagos State; and Eranova University, Kuje, FCT.
Follow the AkweyaTV channel on WhatsApp: http://bit.ly/3I7mQVx
Or scan the QR code:
