Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, who unveiled the secret in a paper he presented at the pre-convocation lecture he delivered at the Bingham University, Karu, Nasarawa State, confirmed that private universities are becoming the toast of many Nigerians who are seeking university education.
As a result, he has asked the private university operators in Nigeria to stand firm on qualities and standards, academically and otherwise, in order to continually attract the kind of students they want and also remain relevant in the comity of ivory towers within and outside Nigeria.
In addition to that, he advised that they search and look out for proven competence and experience in terms of recruitment of management and staff, and not promote issues of ethnicity, or religion, among others that would affect their employees.
He said: “The institution is called ‘university’, meaning that they should be universal in their activities and not restricted to a local or state environment. In public universities, the challenge of selecting of Vice-Chancellor or other senior management staff is big. Many communities often insist that it must be a member of their community, local government or state should occupy the office. Some go as far as being fetish. That’s how bad it has become.”
He encouraged private university operators to look beyond the state, community, or whatever, in terms of recruitment of management staff, rather subject all applicants to thorough scrutiny and be sure they are qualified, academically, experience-wise and other criteria.
This, he added, will increase public confidence in private universities, and also boost reputations, and credibility, especially during this period when more people are considering private universities for their children because of the periodic ASUU strike. “It will, in turn, attract support, grants and other opportunities from within and outside Nigeria.
“Unarguably, periodic academic disruptions in public universities due to the ASUU strike has made parents and guardians lose interest in public universities and are tilting towards private universities.
“Before this ASUU strike that just ended a few weeks ago, private universities had accounted for little above five per cent of total university admissions. But the figure has gone up due to the increasing loss of interest in public universities by parents and guardians. The recent record indicated that private universities now account for over 10 per cent of university admissions in Nigeria.”
He, however, commended Bingham University for being one of the private universities in Nigeria that is leading the way in terms of academic and non-academic activities, hence the improvement in academic and administrative programmes.
He assured the institution that NUC will continually provide them with support to ensure that they move from where they are currently, academically and otherwise, to where they ought to be, and possibly compete with other global ivory towers.
The Sun
