Rethinking Higher Education: Experts Demand Radical Transformation of Nigerian Universities

Funmi Ogundare

Prominent stakeholders in Nigeria’s higher education system have called for urgent reforms to reposition universities for 21st-century relevance.
They made the call recently at the fourth public lecture of the African School of Economics (ASE), Abuja, themed, ‘The 21st Century Nigerian University: Pitfalls and Pathways’.
In their remarks, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abdullahi Yusuf Ribadu and the Director of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship at NUC, Mr. Ashafa Ladan, emphasised need for Nigerian universities to move beyond traditional degree awarding.
They noted that the institutions must become hubs of innovation, skills development and national progress.
Ribadu outlined his administration’s transformative agenda, anchored on eight strategic pillars: expanding access, curriculum innovation, digital transformation, skills and entrepreneurship development, industry-government-academia collaboration, improved graduate employability, commercialisation of research, and cross-border academic synergy.
Prof. Andrew Haruna, Secretary-General of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), lauded ASE’s vision and its vice-chancellor. He noted that Nigerian universities are navigating a complex intersection of global changes and local imperatives, which demand institutional introspection.
Haruna highlighted key challenges, including infrastructural decay, funding constraints, brain drain, outdated curricula, and low graduate employability while calling for “universities to become agents of inclusive excellence, innovation, and socio-economic transformation.”
In his keynote, a Professor of African History at Vanderbilt University, USA, Moses Ochonu, underscored the global disruptions reshaping higher education and warned that Nigerian universities are not immune.
He expressed concern about the erosion of cosmopolitan values in academia, noting a rise in academic inbreeding and intellectual stagnation.
He also criticised internal challenges, such as absenteeism, poor supervision, outdated teaching methods, and the proliferation of predatory journals.
Reecognising the historical achievements of ASUU in safeguarding academic rights, he argued that “parts of the system have become complacent.”
To revitalize academia, Ochonu proposed the adoption of a student bill of rights, the establishment of teaching excellence awards and the creation of writing centres’.
“There is a need for curriculum decolonisation and lifelong learning opportunities, including modular and skills-based enrolments,” he stated.
In his remarks titled, ‘Ideas Rule the World’, ASE Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mahfouz Adedimeji, traced the roots of university education to Africa, referencing the University of Qarawiyyin in Morocco (est. 859 AD).
He explained that Nigerian universities, now over 300 in number, must confront both national and global challenges, including technological disruption, migration, inequality, and environmental crises.
Using the metaphor of an eagle breaking a tortoise shell by flying high and dropping it, he urged universities to “convert obstacles into opportunities through collaboration. There is a need for a conceited effort on the Triple Helix approach which will mean engaging government, academia, and industry, to drive meaningful transformation.”