The National Universities Commission said plans are being concluded to announce the establishment of two new universities in the country which will further bring the total number of institutions in the country to 272.
The commission’s acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, said this during an interaction with journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
Maiyaki said the NUC would continue to approve new universities to cater for the admissions gap in the country.
He noted that while about two million candidates seek admission into universities every year, the total available quota for admission range between 500,000 and 700,000.
Maiyaki’s stance comes amidst the fight of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and other stakeholders in the tertiary education sub-sector against the proliferation of institutions in the country by the government at the Federal and State levels.
Stakeholders on numerous occasions said the establishment of new universities amidst poor funding of existing ones was not the way to go and hence had called on the government and the NUC to halt approvals given to new public universities.
While noting that countries like Brazil, Indonesia and others who have a population not up to Nigeria have more than 1,000 universities, he said efforts were ongoing to reposition the university system through transnational education by allowing foreign varsities to come in and operate in the country.
The Executive Secretary said the commission is presently processing applications for the establishment of distance learning centres that will be monitored to provide quality education.
