The proliferation of universities would have disastrous consequences if not checked, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti Founder, Chief Afe Babalola warned on Monday.
The eminent lawyer expressed concern that the current trend of mass approval of universities without consideration for quality and infrastructure will lead to a decline in educational standards.
Babalola spoke in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital.
It was at the High Impact Research and Journal Advancement Workshop organized by the ABUAD Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.
He urged the National University Commission (NUC), to completely overhaul the university licensing process to ensure the highest standard of education.
The elder statesman also called on the NUC to take immediate steps to close those mushroom universities, many of which are illegal and are operating without the permission of the regulatory body.
He lamented that university licensing and accreditation, as well as the NUC’s ability to ensure quality control and stamp out substandard institutions, appears to have been seriously compromised.
Babalola said: “What do we have today? The mass approval of mushroom and substandard universities with some lacking even the basic learning facilities and infrastructure. The strict compliance with law and rules has been brushed aside now.
“As a result of the “anything goes” approach to university licensing and accreditation, NUC’s ability to ensure quality control, and to stamp out substandard institutions, appears to have been seriously compromised. We currently have over 270 universities in Nigeria, and proposals for the approval of another 200 new institutions are currently under consideration by the National Assembly.”
The focus now seems to be on quantity not quality, licensing more universities without adequate plans for monitoring their standards. The end result is a rapid decline and rot of our educational system and in the quality of our graduates. What we need is quality education. Poor education is worse than illiteracy.”
Continuing, the ABUAD Chancellor said: “We cannot seriously speak of advancing sustainable development through high impact research unless we address this menace of the proliferation of substandard universities in our nation.
“Mushroom and substandard universities recruit substandard faculty members, who conduct substandard research that are printed by substandard publishers, resulting in substandard and half-baked graduates that have little or nothing to offer to national development.”
In his keynote lecture titled: Promoting High-Impact Research Publications for Sustainable National Development in Nigeria: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions, the former Executive Secretary of the NUC , Prof Peter Okebukola lamented the inadequate funding for research and development
“Research funding in Nigeria is largely dependent on Federal Government allocations, which are insufficient to support large-scale or sustained commercialisation efforts. Limited access to venture capital or private-sector investment further stifles the ability to scale innovations.”
In his welcome remarks, the Deputy Vice Chancellor Research, Innovation and Strategic Partnership, Prof Damilola Olawuyi, said only very few universities in Nigeria can boast of having a SCOPUS-Indexed journal, adding that ABUAD leads in this area.
“The ABUAD Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy is indexed by SCOPUS, a premier online database containing over 2000 leading journals. It is also indexed on HeinOnline, Westlaw. Asian Science and Citation Index (ASCI), EBSCO, Ingenta Connect, SCILIT.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
