Nyesom Wike avows increase in university admission ratio

“Over one million candidates now gain admission into the universities yearly as against four hundred thousand three years ago, due to the access created by the Goodluck Jonathan administration,” the Supervising Minister of Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike disclosed recently in Abuja, while presenting the scorecard of the Federal Ministry of Education.
 
He said that access to education is one of the strategic goals being implemented by the present administration under the Transformation Agenda to achieve the human capital development objective.The Minister also indicated that the increase of over 100% in university admission resulted from the establishment of fourteen new universities by the present government, comprising twelve conventional universities and two specialised universities at Wudil, Kano State for the training of Police Officers and the National Maritime University at Okerenkoko. Adding, each of the universities specialises in a particular subject area relevant to regional and national needs.
 
Nyesom Wike further noted that commencing from 2010, nine private universities have been licensed to complement the public universities in the provision of quality and functional education for Nigerians. He remarked that the National Open University of Nigeria which was established to provide alternative access to tertiary education for candidates who could not gain admission into the conventional universities has expanded its programmes by enrolling about two hundred and fifty thousand candidates per year.
 
According to him, the Open and Distance Learning Programmes in some selected universities have been expanded to increase their capacity beyond the current two hundred and ten thousand.
 
In his remarks at the occasion, the Information Minister, Labaran Maku commended the vision of President Jonathan in establishing the fourteen universities and expressed delight that ten were located in the northern part of the country. He appealed to the striking Polytechnic lecturers to be patriotic and call off the strike in the interest of national development, saying this would allow the Federal Government to address their grievances alongside the competing demands for resources in other sectors of the economy.