Ifelola Olaleye

Currently, the NUC has revealed it is processing the application of 292 new private universities. This is in response to the inability of over one million students who are unable to get placing in Nigerian tertiary institutions and a way of weakning the impact of ASUU-led industrial actions on the higher education sector.

While it is true that Nigeria has a low number of university per population unlike the likes of United States and India with 5,000 and 8,000 universities respectively, Nigeria must however be very careful to anticipate the challenges ahead.


Low Popularity and Reputation: There are tons of private universities today which are unknown by the Nigerian public. Students generally do not want to study in schools they cannot brag of, irrespective of it's academic potentials hence a university's inability to secure popularity and reputation might be the path to its doom. Second generation private universities(created after 2010) are particularly bedeviled by the challenge of low reputation.

Poor Funding: Private Universities generally manage available funds better than their public counterpart and that might be the reason why the Nigerian public has missed the cry of Private universities in Nigeria for inclusion in Tetfund as just greed. However, private universities are finding it hard to balance accounts between paying huge amounts as wage bill, utilities(electricity), infrastructure development and so on. Despite the accusations of exploitative fees, private universities are struggling because the money they charge isn't even enough to cover their expenses. In most private universities it would take an average of about 12 students school fees to pay jut one Professor's annual salary. This then makes many private university resort to employing lecturers on part time.

Rising Debt Profile: In a bid to keep up infrastructurally, most private universities are resorting to financing their budgets through humongous loans while others are using loans as seed capital for setting up infrastructure. Debt in itself isn't bad as universities the likes of Stanford also use debt in financing their budget. Though for Nigerian universities there is usually one way to repay and that is raising fees.

Chronic Low Student Enrollment Today, Nigerian private universities are competing for a small middle class population and with the rise of newer private universities, the competition only becomes stiffer. Much of the first generation private universities who could easily secure over a thousand students in the early 2000s are now finding it more challenging. However it is important to note that while most private universities are having lower enrollments some are actually having increased enrollments.

Nigerian Public's Misconception Of University Rankings: Perhaps one of the things that has damaged the reputation of private universities are university rankings which are severely misunderstood by the Nigerian public. Today, parents and students alike log onto Google to search for the best universities in Nigeria just to find private universities sitting at the bottom of most tables with federal universities leading. Unfortunately they do not understand the methodology and flaws of such ranking systems. For instance the size and popularity of a university can directly impact on most university rankings like 4icu or unirank. Some other rankings are also made up by individuals with the sole intent to mislead the public. Other research rankings like webometrics has size standardization as issues and would naturally see bigger university take lead to the disadvantage of smaller ones.

Inability To Attract Students From Wealthy Homes: Very few Nigerian private universities can attract Children of the very rich in Nigeria, most usually attract middle class parents who do not want their children to suffer the effects of the rot in public universities. Also, there is proof that while private universities are suffering from low enrollment, the likes of the United Kingdom still enjoys huge patronage from Nigerian students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. For private universities to survive they must be able to attract the children of very wealthy families also. High networth individuals also have the capacity to increase radically the chances of a university to generate larger IGR through their campus purchases and procurement.

Recommendations For Private Universities in Nigeria.
Private Universities in Nigeria can survive but it would be tough and requiring of serious innovations particularly in the next few years as hundreds of more private universities join the Nigerian university system.

Private universities should have strong media presence.
Private Universities should explore recruiting students from neighbouring countries.
Private universities should explore delving into French taught programmes for the West African francophone neighbours.
Private Universities should continue to Lubby for inclusion in Tetfund.
Private universities must drop absurd rules and embrace moderate philosophy.
Private universities must continue to attract local and international scholarships for indigent student.
Private Universities must understand that her student and Alumni community are the best ambassadors of the university. When they speak Ill of their almamater they dreal an irreversible deathblow to the university.

https://educationexplorersite./2018/05/10/why-many-nigerian-private-universities-may-go-into-extinction-in-the-next-decade/

FTC..........you are a bit right,only the best among them will survive before the next decade.its just a case of reputation.
That's the problem with public opinion,they check the superficial first before considering the true standard of a thing.
I school in federal university of Agriculture,makurdi which has a high academic standard with serious lecturers but my friends in unilag, uniport, uniben and unn thinks their school is the best but I just laught at their ignorance.
People judge by appearance and reputation.

tommyken:
FTC..........you are a bit right,only the best among them will survive before the next decade.its just a case of reputation.
That's the problem with public opinion,they check the superficial first before considering the true standard of a thing.
I school in federal university of Agriculture,makurdi which has a high academic standard with serious lecturers but my friends in unilag, uniport, uniben and unn thinks their school is the best but I just laught at their ignorance.
People judge by appearance and reputation.

The issue is that of low reputation really... Who will attend Al Qalam university, Edwin Clarke uni, Chrisland, Tansian university, Western Delta uni for 300-400,000 naira in place of UNILAG of less than 50,000. Most private unis don't have selling point beyond academic stability and no cultism.

oga70563:
OP you need to be enlightened. Your argument is absolutely wrong. Private University are better funded and checkmated than our public Universities coupled with their serene learning environment.

Private Universities nowadays are better off. Do the maths yourself and don't type this rubbish again

Don't really argue with highered on this he knows what he is saying. Though Covenant university has the highest per capita investment of all Nigerian universities according to NUC, I can tell you it isn't the same for majority of private unis.
UI's annual wage bill can build 10 universities the size of Anchor university in a year. It can maintain 8 private jets or buy one jet in every year. It can replace Ekiti's igr for 3 years. The only thing I disagree with highered is that he didn't consider rate of investment/student population. You would really need to sit down and do the math to know which is more funded but don't get it twisted federal unis are funded. But I can assure you of one thing ABU is the most funded federal uni in naija while Covenant seems to be the most funded overall.

ok, who are you supporting tonight?

Hmmmmn

tommyken:
FTC..........you are a bit right,only the best among them will survive before the next decade.its just a case of reputation.
That's the problem with public opinion,they check the superficial first before considering the true standard of a thing.
I school in federal university of Agriculture,makurdi which has a high academic standard with serious lecturers but my friends in unilag, uniport, uniben and unn thinks their school is the best but I just laught at their ignorance.
People judge by appearance and reputation.

It's...

Tru talk, there will be gud competition amongst drm, its also goin to affect govt schools too, so many departments in schools will be redundant cos d courses de teach av no value...

one sure tin is dat nigeria will be very interesting wen dat time comes...

its not just goin to be a problem wit schools, even churches...

Hmmmmm

A regular nairaland pastime: pitting federal and state university students/graduates against privately trained ones.
Time and time again it never fails #TrollBait.

Free federal university education is just a white elephant project...

Hmmmm! On point!

I think , they are too many...Low Standard is a
major set back

NwanyiAwkaetiti:
Free federal university education is just a white elephant project...

It has always been free tuition .

Any private University that upholds exceptionally high standards will always attract students.

Government should hands off tertiary education.

They can subsidise education, regulate it, licence it,, give grants, loans research funding and whatsoever, but if Nigeria wants to move forward, hands off babysitting universities and level the playing field.

Prophets of Doom

it's a pity that the so-called private unis that charge exorbitant fees, find it hard to attract students from wealthy homes!

this is COMPLETE fallacy..

U didn't mention d real threat which is

If we av a future govt DT get it right with war against corruption. No more bribe , white elephant projects, inflated budgets & proposal etc. Moreover, d govt goes ahead to recover all looted & laundered cash from d thieves.

I'm sure d story will change

[b]Nigerian Public's Misconception Of University Rankings: Perhaps one of the things that has damaged the reputation of private universities are university rankings which are severely misunderstood by the Nigerian public. Today, parents and students alike log onto Google to search for the best universities in Nigeria just to find private universities sitting at the bottom of most tables with federal universities leading. Unfortunately they do not understand the methodology and flaws of such ranking systems. For instance the size and popularity of a university can directly impact on most university rankings like 4icu or unirank. Some other rankings are also made up by individuals with the sole intent to mislead the public. Other research rankings like webometrics has size standardization as issues and would naturally see bigger university take lead to the disadvantage of smaller ones.
[/b]

This is not entirely true. Using whatever of methodology will always have public universities, especially federal as the best. Although in the future, there will be more private universities. But trying to blame the public for their misconception is quite false.

Inability To Attract Students From Wealthy Homes: Very few Nigerian private universities can attract Children of the very rich in Nigeria, most usually attract middle class parents who do not want their children to suffer the effects of the rot in public universities. Also, there is proof that while private universities are suffering from low enrollment, the likes of the United Kingdom still enjoys huge patronage from Nigerian students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. For private universities to survive they must be able to attract the children of very wealthy families also. High networth individuals also have the capacity to increase radically the chances of a university to generate larger IGR through their campus purchases and procurement.

Yeah. This is true. But the wealthy especially informed class will tend to prefer a Covenant as opposed to a Novena. However, the private schools in Abuja have been surviving sha.

Private Universities must understand that her student and Alumni community are the best ambassadors of the university. When they speak Ill of their almamater they dreal an irreversible deathblow to the university.

You mean like Madonna University? But they are still getting students. How they do this is mind-blogging.

Finally, private universities (CU, ABUAD, BU, RU, AUN,Bells Tech and few others) will be among the most preferred schools in the future.

https://educationexplorersite./2018/05/10/why-many-nigerian-private-universities-may-go-into-extinction-in-the-next-decade/

[/quote]

I doubt this, I'm of the opinion that with the current state of Nigerian affairs, Public University funding might continue to deteriorate leading to more decay in public universities infrastructure there by leading to more patronage of private universities. Private universities will be the pride of Nigeria higher education in decades to come. That's my take!

OP you need to be enlightened. Your argument is absolutely wrong. Private University are better funded and checkmated than our public Universities coupled with their serene learning environment.

Private Universities nowadays are better off. Do the maths yourself and don't type this rubbish again

Not true.

Gerrard59:




This is not entirely true. Using whatever of methodology will always have public universities, especially federal as the best. Although in the future, there will be more private universities. But trying to blame the public for their misconception is quite false.

Do you know that the 4icu and unirank rankings are based on web popularity. However most Nigerians think it is based on quality. So how does an Elizade uni with 500 applicant clicking her website compete with Unilorin with over 100,000 applicants clicking her website? Do u know that all NUC rankings in the past 10 years were all false? Do you know that webometrics is heavily biased against small university e.g uni of Ibadan with 190 faculties produces 1000 research papers covenant with 32 faculties produce 500. Webometrics would rate UI above covenant.

Yeah. This is true. But the wealthy especially informed class will tend to prefer a Covenant as opposed to a Novena. However, the private schools in Abuja have been surviving sha.

I'm so sorry I didn't capture this Abuja issue. The likes of Baze and Nile would survive very well because they are focused on Luxury based education. The super wealthy would generally go there. As per Covenant, Babcock, Abuad, PAU, AUN, BAZE and Nile they are exempted from this write up. I am really talking(warning) about the likes of Novena, western delta uni, Samuel adegboyega uni, Edwin Clarke uni, pamo, evangel, leadcity, bellstech, tansian, Madonna, coal city uni, ritmon ikot uni, easternpalm, Monash, adetiba, spiritian, crown hill etc

You mean like Madonna University? But they are still getting students. How they do this is mind-blogging.

Finally, private universities (CU, ABUAD, BU, RU, AUN,Bells Tech and few others) will be among the most preferred schools in the future

Madonna, Igbinedion's enrollment and popularity has reduced drastically over the years. What they initially enjoyed was pioneer status but they failed to keep up and might be completely lost in the next few years.

Yes, reputation.... Except for the likes of American Uni. of Nig(AUN) AKA, ABTI, an average Nigerian would jump (three times) at the chance to study in a federal university than in a private one.

However, there is class of citizens very determined to give their wards an education outside the public schools in Nigeria, the wealthy. A close look at why they prefer to send their kids abroad, outside the rhetorics of "good education", includes the menace of cultism and ASUU.

Private universities must find ways to attract this class and THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO/MUST GET INVOLVED. Simply because this is a business... When a business thrives there are ripple effects -employments, taxes, etc. Secondly, this will reduce the pressure on our currency, the figures behind forex for students abroad is just staggering.

So private universities should make it their patriotic duty to end "student flight" and the government should help their course. For student flight is as criminal as capital flight.

�

forget about the school reputation, students are ready to go to any institution that is ready to offer them the certificate they want

True
There are only 2 private universities - Covenant University & others.