By Cynthia Akande
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has revealed that Nigeria currently has only 100,000 academic staff members teaching and supervising about 2.1 million students in universities across the country.
The NUC disclosed this in its latest bulletin in response to the embargo Government placed on employment due to economic factors.
The Deputy Executive Secretary, Administration, NUC, Mr Chris Maiyaki, who was quoted in the bulletin, explained that the commission was supervising over 200 universities consisting of 48 belonging to the Federal Government; 54 states and 99 private institutions.
He said, “The entire system has about 2.1 million students and staff strength of about 170,000 non-teaching and 100,000 academic staff.
“Some of the problems facing the system include increased running cost, meagre budgetary allocations, issue of power shortages and shortages of manpower.
“There is a need for universities to be isolated from the Federal Government’s circular on embargo on new employment because of the peculiarity and distinctive nature of the universities in order for them to keep up the pace in attaining comparable standards with their counterparts globally.
“We also have incessant interference in the NUC’s functions by some professional bodies and associations, which have continued to issue needless instructions to universities.
“Other challenges in the Nigerian university system include the issue of digital response to COVID-19 lockdown.”
Maiyaki further explained that the advent of coronavirus had enabled Nigerian universities to begin to explore the dual-mode of teaching with more institutions developing and expanding their digital hub to commence extensive use of the online platform.
Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary of the NUC Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, disclosed that the new Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS), being developed by the Commission would soon be released.
He also noted that a committee of experts were working on the document in diverse disciplines aimed at ensuring that academic programmes of the Nigerian University System (NUS) become more globally competitive.
