Nigeria's University System Needs More Qualified Teachers — Don

Part of the problems of the Nigerian tertiary education system is the inadequacy of quality quality academics to match the number of institutions.

The Vice Chancellor of The Bells University of Technology, Professor Isaac Adebayo Adeyemi, said this in a Business Day.

According to Adeyemi, there are problems in the sector because, despite the proliferation of universities, there are few qualified academics to teach the students they admit, leading to a low quality education and graduates.

"There is a boom in the number of universities we have and the country is not prepared to match that increase with academics.

Government will just wake up and say we are establishing three, four additional universities; but where are the teachers?" he asked.

Adeyemi added that Nigeria's education strategy must give thought to teacher/lecturer development to match all other policies.

"We are not planning aright. We should be able to match the number of universities we have with the number of academics/quality lecturers"

"This means we should have a special provision for training of lecturers either within or outside the country," the don said.

He noted also that some of the institutions admit more students than they ought to, thereby overstretching their limited facilities.

The result of this, he says, is watered down education.

"When you have a university that is not supposed to be more than ten thousand students and they have about 25 to 35 thousand students, definitely the quality will be watered down because of the facilities.

"Facilities are not elastic. It cannot go round.

Nigeria Graduates Still Good

Adeyemi however noted that Nigeria still produces high performing graduates despite the obvious challenges in the system.

"Even with all these deficiencies and challenges, I still have confidence in the average Nigerian undergraduate who has actually gone through the mil."

"I can tell you that I have witnessed about, if not, 100 percent or 99.5 percent great performance," he said.

He also urged the Federal government to "create an enabling environment rather than allowing people flee the country to practice elsewhere."

The Bells University of Technology, is a fully residential nine-year-old private institution established by the Bells Educational Foundation. It is in Ota, Ogun State.