NUC Grants Provisional Licences to 12 New Private Universities
The National Universities Commission (NUC), has granted provisional licenses to the 12 newly established private universities that were approved by the Federal Executive Council.
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who represented the licenses to the promoters of the institutions at a ceremony in Abuja, said the 12 new universities bring the number of private universities to 111 and the total number of universities in the country to 215.
The universities are, Pen Resource University, Gombe; Al-Ansar University, Maiduguri, Borno State; Margaret Lawrence University Galilee, Delta State, and Khalifa Isiyaku Rabiu University, Kano, Kano State.
Others are Sports University, Idumuje, Ugboko, Delta state; Bab Ahmed University, Kano, Kano State; Saisa University of Medical Sciences and Technology, Sokoto, Sokoto State, and the Nigerian British University, Asa, Abia State.
Also presented with the provisional licenses are Peter University, Achina/Onneh, Anambra State; Newgate University, Minna, Niger State, European University of Nigeria, Duboyi, Abuja, FCT, and Northwest University, Sokoto, Sokoto State.
Adamu said the licenses were approved by the Federal Executive Council on April 6 for the widening of access to university education in the country.
The minister noted that government recognises the place of education in bolstering the economic fortunes of the country and therefore welcomes private sector investment in the university subsector.
Meanwhile, the National Universities Commission, NUC, has said the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards, BMAS, for universities have been revised to Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards, CCMAS, which will soon be unveiled to the public.
The commission said the CCMAS will provide 70 per cent of what should be taught along with the expected outcomes, while the universities will provide 30 per cent based on their individual contextual peculiarities and characteristics.
Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, spoke in his remark, at the presentation of licenses to 12 new private universities.
According to Rasheed, the radical re-engineering of curricula in Nigerian universities carried by NUC is to meet global standards and international best practices towards preparing Nigerian graduates for relevance in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, world economy with the skills needed for the future.
He applauded proprietors of the private universities licensed at the occasion, for the initiative of establishing these Universities despite the huge resource implication of establishing a private university in Nigeria.
Tribune
