Only One Percent Of Nigeria’s Population In Varsity

The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed‎, says only one percent of Nigeria’s population is presently enrolled in universities.

According to NAN, Rasheed disclosed this during the presentation of Provisional License to a new private university, Skyline University, Kano in Abuja.

Out of the 164 universities in the country, skyline university is one of the youngest private university making it the 75th private varsity that has just been accredited by NUC.

“‎All the 75 private universities in the country account for only 5.31 percent of the total enrollment in our universities and many of them are small,” he said.

‎Describing the current educational system in the country as ‘unhealthy,’ Rasheed called for more access to quality university education and also urged the government to create room for scholarships for indigenes that are intellectually sound.

“If you look at the population of 198 million which is nearly 200 million and if you bear in mind that the total enrollment in our 164 universities today is less than 2 million.

“That is just 1.96 million students in the universities that translate roughly to one percent of the population; one percent of the population are in the university, I think that is not healthy.’’ he queried.

“So, we need more access; that is why we need either more universities or we need to expand existing universities. We need to create more space for more Nigerians to get quality university education.”

The NUC Boss went on to declare the intentions of the commission to continually support university education investors in a way to further develop the country.

“The future of this country rests in the strength of the university education, so we will continue to support investors in our university education,” he said.