KADUNA STATE GETS APPROVAL FOR ITS FIRST EVER PRIVATE UNIVERSTY
KADUNA STATE GETS APPROVAL FOR ITS FIRST EVER PRIVATE UNIVERSTY
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
January 10, 2019
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
nurudeendauda.blogspot.com
It is with great sense of Joy that I got the news of the approvals of the Greenfield University, Kaduna which is the first ever Kaduna state based private university. This is also the "third based" private university in the North -West Geo-political Zone after Al-Qalam University, Katsina and Skyline University, Kano.
However, some people might argue that a poorman's child can't afford private university, for that is undesirable. It is important to note that, the poorman's child would certainly get Job even if it is a blue collar job. Besides the employment of senior academic and non academic staff , during the course of building private universities, a lot of people will get Jobs. Cleaners, gardners and security men will be employed etc. It will bring about development etc.
As someone from North West Zone, it baffles me to note that, despite our huge population, richmen and the seven states of : Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara we hitherto have only one private university in Katsina state.
It was once reported thus: "...Out of the 75 private universities in the country, only fifteen (15) are located in the North. There are 12 in North -Central, 2 in the North -East and now 2 in the North-West Zone .The South -West Zone alone has about 30 private universities. However, the Executive Secretary, of NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed said: "...the country has 42 Federal, 47states and 75 private universities, making a total of 164 universities..." (Daily Trust, July 4,2018).
Mohammed Lapai in Sir Ahmadu Bello's Book : My life said : "...as far as the history of Western education is concerned, the first Mission School was started in the Sourthern province in 1842 and the first government school was started in the North at Kano in 1909..."(page146).This means that there is 67 years educational gap between us .
Northerners must know that all the private universities established in Southern Nigeria were and or are being established by their rich individuals and faith based organizations not their governments. It is equally important for Northerners to know that, those universities were established not for "charity" but were for "education" and business purposes. It seems like education is not our priority here in the North .
It is sad to note that, most Northern rich men prefer sending their children to schools abroad rather than establishing private universities in the North. It will do us good if we retrace our steps and start establishing private universities here at home. Moreover, the religion and cultural values of our children will be better protected at home than abroad.
The Northern rich men must be reminded that, investment in education should and or must not be left to government alone . I am not calling for the establishment of more private universities for charity but for education and business enterprises as In other places.
In my observation, the number of our universities in Nigeria are grossly inadequate in comparison to the growing population of our country. About 1.5 million students write Unified Matriculation Tertiary Examinations on annual basis for the existing 89 public Federal and states universities in the country with the vacancies of less than 500,000 students for admission yearly .
In addition, even if each of these available public universities has the capacity to admit 5,000 students to which is certainly not possible , we will only end up having 445,000 students being admitted yearly with more than one million students without admission . And the number of admission seekers keep on increasing annually. More private universities could fill the admission gab of the country .
In my humble suggestion ,our faith based organizations in the North as a way of ending "begging" from "worshippers " should establish "universities" not for "charity" but as a "business enterprise" to serve as a way of sustaining their places of worships, this will ensure their true independence which will enable them speak truth to "power" without fear or favour. We also need rich individuals to invest in its.
With the new approvals, It brings the number of private universities in Nigeria to 79. Before the new approvals, the total number of universities in the country, with over 180 million population, was 160 (40 federal universities, 45 state-owned universities and 75 private universities).
May God bless Nigeria!