Nigerian universities should evolve to remain related by specializing in high quality, sustainability, integrity, innovation, and inclusivity to fulfill the calls for of a quickly altering world.
The Chairman, Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), Prof. Lawrence Ezemonye, acknowledged this on Thursday in Abuja on the 2025 Public Lecture of the Social Science Academy of Nigeria (SSAN).
Prof. Ezemonye, who doubles because the Vice-Chancellor, Igbinedion College, Okada, Edo State, advocated for a basic overhaul of college training to sort out the sector’s urgent points.
Delivering a lecture on “A New Imaginative and prescient for College Schooling in Nigeria”, the College Don emphasised {that a} contemporary strategy would empower universities to churn out graduates able to assembly Twenty first-century calls for.
In line with the Professor of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Forensics, “The world is altering quickly, and universities should adapt to arrange future-ready graduates.
“We’re not simply right here to diagnose issues. We should envision a radical transformation.”
The visitor lecturer highlighted numerous challenges plaguing universities, together with insufficient infrastructure, overcrowded lecture halls, outdated labs, and pending employees points, amongst others.
He proposed a brand new imaginative and prescient for college training that addresses these challenges.
This imaginative and prescient, he mentioned, contains project-based studying, competency-based training, entrepreneurial universities, socially accountable universities, and technology-augmented universities, amongst others.
“We should craft a brand new identification for Nigerian universities, not ‘diploma mills’ or ‘political soccer fields,’ however nationwide compounds, innovation hubs, and information greenhouses,” he mentioned.
“If we fail to alter the metaphor, we’ll fail to alter the mannequin.”
Earlier, former Vice-Chancellor of Veritas College, Prof. Michael Kwanashie, known as for a essential re-evaluation of how Nigerian universities are funded.
Prof. Kwanashie emphasised that new funding methods for universities should be tailor-made to Nigeria’s particular socio-economic and political realities.
He instructed that the Nigerian college system, which was modeled after the Western college system, wanted to be tailored to the native context.
“For individuals who handle the college system, they must have a look at these solutions and see methods to maneuver to activate a few of these funding sources,” he mentioned.
“Many of those funding sources are depending on the character of the economic system they function in, social constructions, philosophy of the society. So, these sensible concepts should be contextualised.”
