Nigerian education news

The Vice-Chancellor of the Crescent University, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Prof. Ibraheem Gbajabiamila, in this interview with AKEEM LASISI and CHARLES ABAH, speaks on private university education in Nigeria

I think it has been a rough journey because the investment that you need to succeed is not easy to come by. One of the first misconceptions is that many people think that the idea of establishing a private university is to make money. That is not true. Nobody makes money easily by investing in private university education.

The point therefore is that those who started such institutions are in it as a kind of contribution to the development of the society and as a way of widening access to education. I remember the NUC executive secretary once told the owner of Elizade Motors, Chief Michael Ojo, that he would make more money selling Toyota cars than coming into private university education where he will not make any profit in the next 30 years. But the chief said he wanted to leave a legacy.

It is the same for Prince Bola Ajibola, the founder of the Crescent University. He wants to widen education access and provide more opportunities for Nigerians. Nigeria is a country with millions of people but only about 400,000 people barely secure university admission every year.

Nigeria has about 140 universities – private, federal and states – for its huge population. But Mexico, which has 120 million people, has over 1,000 universities. It is the same for some other foreign countries and so you can see there is much gap. We have failed to invest in education in the last 50 years even as the giant of Africa and the result is that most of our people are now going to Ghana and other African countries, which are providing sub-standard education, to study. Most of these universities cannot even get the NUC approval here and our people are going there as foreign students and are paying a considerable amount of money.