How we are dealing with illegal universities -NUC
The committee initially was to go round the states and sensitise governors, commissioners of police, and even chairmen of local governments to alert Nigerians that there are illegal universities operating. We have done the sensitisation in the South-western and the Eastern states, and we now continue in the North. What makes a university illegal? Any […]
The committee initially was to go round the states and sensitise governors, commissioners of police, and even chairmen of local governments to alert Nigerians that there are illegal universities operating. We have done the sensitisation in the South-western and the Eastern states, and we now continue in the North.
What makes a university illegal?
Any university that does not have the NUC license is an illegal one. We have a procedure of giving out license to universities. If you are proposing to establish a private university, after you must have written your intention to us, we invite you for interaction. Thereafter, we allow you to buy the form, fill and return it to us. This is in addition to other requirements.
What are they?
You must have an academic brief, a master plan, an acceptable university law, a required land size, and at least N200 million bank guarantee deposit to run that university for a number of years for us to know that you are really serious. The process starts with the NUC, but does end with it. It ends with the Federal Executive Council after the NUC management has been satisfied with all the procedures.
Perhaps illegal universities could not have emerged had the NUC had a viable monitoring unit.
We have more than one monitoring unit. First of all, we have what we call the permanent Standing Committee on Private Universities (SCOPU) comprising professors, NUC staff and experts. They are the ones who visit proposed universities, keep interacting with proprietors and reviewing their documents. We also have a monitoring and inspection department, as well as an accreditation and quality assurance department. So, almost all our departments are involved in licensing and monitoring of private universities.
Why did it take the commission so long to discover these illegal universities?
No, it didn’t take us long to discover them. For almost three years now, we have kept listing them in our Monday bulletin and various media adverts. At present, there are about 46 illegal private universities across the country. The only thing is that the law is not strong on our side.
You mean the law prohibits the NUC from closing down these universities?
I mean the law requires us to give an illegal university’s proprietor a 60-day notice within which to make a representation to us to close, and if he/she refuses, we go after the school. We are not expected to just go and close down the illegal universities. We’re expected to take their proprietors to court. Right now, we are in court with some of them. Except we don’t have the grace, upon noticing an illegal university, to go and close it, there would be problems. We have proposed to the National Assembly a bill that would empower us to close down illegal universities upon noticing them.
The locations of these universities remain a mystery to many. Where are they sited?
They are everywhere. Now that we are very hard on them, they keep shifting base. Sometimes, they don’t put up their signposts to avoid being caught by us. I told you we’re in court with some of them. How could that be if they don’t exist? Some proprietors have even taken us to court, feeling that once they registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, they are free to operate as legal universities, but they are not.
But no single illegal university has been closed down so far.
Closing them down means how many of them have been served notices to close. About 44 of them have been served notices to close down. Those that could not withstand our pressure would simply melt away, while others would simply shift base. But to our satisfaction, we have been to many of their sites physically, sometimes with policemen fighting and arresting the proprietors.
Peradventure most of these illegal universities are owned by influential people, especially those in government, wouldn’t the NUC be helpless in closing them?
We have not discovered that, but if we do, it is very easy for us. That a proprietor is in government would not make any difference. We would apply the same rule.
A statement credited to the incumbent NUC Executive Secretary was understood to suggest that he considered private universities better than public ones the world over. Given the emergence of illegal private universities in Nigeria, don’t you think the country is an exception?
No, the Executive Secretary couldn’t have said that! What he could have probably meant is that private universities, because of the increasing need for access to tertiary education, may be more in number than public ones in most countries. Of course, there are good and excellent private universities outside this country that are far better than public universities where they exist. But that does not mean that the public universities are not good. It simply means that private universities, if properly licensed, properly coordinated and properly run, could be as good as any university or even better.
Most universities have been alleged of using post-UME screening to extort money from prospective students. How does the NUC check this?
The rule is very clear. When the post-UME screening was introduced, vice-chancellors were given directives on what to do. If any of those allegations of extortion comes to us, we would take appropriate actions. I remember the Executive Secretary acted on an allegation of that kind that came to the attention of the NUC.
How?
That Vice-chancellor was made to refund money to students. So, if the vice-chancellor of a certain university extorts money from students in the name of post-UME more than what is allowed to charge, let them write to the NUC, and such a university would be sanctioned.
Another problem which the NUC has seemingly not been able to solve is the running of unaccredited programmes by some universities. Why does the Commission find it so hard to get hard on these universities?
This is not hard for the NUC at all! In fact, recently, we audited all the programmes that are run in all the Nigerian universities. Those that are illegal, we have asked the universities involved to close them down. Otherwise, their students would not graduate, and if they do, they cannot be mobilised for the national youth service, let alone getting employed in Nigeria. We are very strict to the letter. No university is allowed to take any new programme without informing the NUC, and we don’t just give an approval. We do resource verification by sending a team of experts in a particular field to go and look at the human and material resources the university has for that course. The universities running illegal programmes have been audited and asked to close shop on those programmes.
Is the Commission worried that no Nigerian university is often ranked among the best few in the world?
Yes, and we have taken steps to arrest that situation. It is not because Nigerian universities are not too good. The ranking is on the website presence. Every university must have its presence on the website for it to be included on the list that would be accessed for ranking. We have started the process of doing institution accreditation which involves looking at the institutions entirely from their environments to every other thing about them. We have encouraged and sensitised all Nigerian universities to have an excellent website and put their presence on it. The ranking is done in such a way that the ranking agencies would simply go on the internet and look at the universities that have their presence. Most Nigerian universities have started doing this and by so doing, they are more likely to be ranked good or bad. Also, the government recently realised the rot in the university and it has now set aside billions of naira to address this issue. Six universities have been selected to pilot the programme of putting the nation’s university education in shape.