We Need More Universities — VC, UNILORIN
This was the suggestion of the Vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin, UNILORIN, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali, while answering questions from Success Nwogu of Punch Newspaper.
Q : Should the Federal Government establish more universities or expand the existing ones?
A : It should be the combination of the two because right now the capacity of all the universities according to the statistics that was released is about 500,000. And the number of the candidates that sat for the examination was 1.7million, leaving a shortfall of 1.2 million.
This means that even if they allow the present universities to double their intakes, the universities will be absorbing about 1million candidates. It will still not solve the admission problem.
The permission to double the intake of universities will not happen because you have to expand the capacity, infrastructure and the laboratory equipment to cater for the expansion. In terms of more universities, yes! We still need more universities to be able to augment the present set up.
More importantly, there should be the third option. The option is that the government can put in place an opportunity to have on-line or outreach centres where people can access education. In other climes, they give them such facilities. Online mainly is for post graduate students and for those degrees that are not laboratory- based. We have to use the current technology to allow more candidates have access to education.
What do you guys think? Do you think we really need more universities or we just need to expand and equip those that we already have?
