The Federal Government has approved a seven-year moratorium on the establishment of new federal tertiary institutions.
Rising from the Federal Executive Council today, Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa announced that the ban applies to all federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.
Alausa said the decision aims to address systemic decay caused by unregulated expansion.
His words: “What we are witnessing today is duplication of new federal tertiary institutions, a significant reduction in the current capacity of each institution, and degradation of both physical infrastructure and manpower.
“If we do not act decisively, it will lead to marked declines in educational quality and undermine the international respect that Nigerian graduates command.
“We are doing this to further halt decays in tertiary institutions which may in future affect the quality of education and consequently cause unemployment of graduates from some of these institutions.”
Also Read: JAMB pegs university entry benchmark at 150
Alausa noted Nigeria currently has 72 federal universities, 108 state universities, and 159 private universities with similar trends in polytechnics and colleges of education.
He pointed to a growing mismatch between the number of institutions and available students enrollment,citing a northern university with fewer than 800 students but over 1,200 staff; a situation he described as unsustainable.
The minister said the moratorium is a bold corrective measure by the Tinubu administration and promised that government would now focus on upgrading existing institutions, improving infrastructure, boosting manpower, and increasing capacity.
“We need to improve the quality of our education system and increase the carrying capacity of our current institutions so that Nigerian graduates can maintain and enhance the respect they enjoy globally; said the minister
He also announced that the Council approved nine new private universities out of the 79 active requests pending applications.
”Several of these applications have been in the pipeline for over six years, with investors having already built campuses and invested billions of Naira,” he explained.
“Due to inefficiencies within the NUC, approvals were delayed. We have since introduced reforms to streamline these processes, and today’s approvals are a result of clearing this backlog” said the minister.
NAN
