The Nigerian government has expressed opposition to the proposals by the National Assembly for creation of nearly 200 new universities in the country.
It said with almost 200 bills in the National Assembly for establishment of new universities, there is a growing concern that the system is becoming overwhelmed.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, stated this in Abuja on Thursday during the third edition of the 2025 Ministerial Press Briefing.
Back in January, the minister had announced a one-year moratorium on the establishment of new private universities “to enhance the quality and sustainability of private universities, ensuring that only institutions with the necessary financial and academic capacity are granted licenses.”
The minister also emphasised that strengthening the capacities of the existing universities is more important than establishing new ones.
According to him, “They (lawmakers) are passing a lot of bills. Today, I can tell you that there are almost 200 bills in the National Assembly. We can’t continue like this. Even though we have a lot of them, the capacity for a university to admit is not there. What we need to do now is to rebuild the capacities so that we can offer more viable courses to our citizens.
“We need to stop this (the 200 bills for new universities) from happening. There is so much pressure on the president. We have to, at least, be sensitive to it as well.
“I understand the sentiment of our legislators. They want to show that they are working. We know they are working. But then, we have enough assets, we have enough opportunities out there for students to go to universities.
“What we now need to do is to begin to mobilise more resources to develop infrastructures, build engineering workshops, build laboratories in these universities, recruit international standard teachers, so that we can begin to get these universities to develop, to deliver high quality of education that will be known for as a country.
Alausa added the government had devised measures to provide almajirai with school feeding and vocational training programmes; and grants for Tsangaya and Quranic teachers.
