Dr. Sam Amadi, legal expert and political analyst, asserted that the National Universities Commission (NUC) has clear legal authority to approve university establishments and academic programs, both for public and private institutions.
Amadi in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, however emphasised that regulatory oversight must be balanced with the need for access and adaptability in the higher education sector.
“I think from a legal perspective the NUC has a true mandate to approve establishment, approve development of curriculum department so it’s no argument at all that before aid vs set-up wheather private or public before any program is rolled out NUC accredits that university, accredits the program and based on their established guidelines the universities are free to hold.”
He added that this structure follows global best practices, with regulation designed to ensure that universities meet quality standards. “And regulative universities globally best practice, but the question is the objective of regulation and how you regulate clearly universities ideally are autonomous institutions whether federal owned or privately owned, the owner does not determine the governors as long as they complied with basic standards rolled out by NUC based on laws of the country and the statistics objective of public education.”
Citing historical context, Amadi referenced the 1959 Ashby Commission and stressed that higher education has a direct correlation with national economic development. “Education especially highly education correlates to economic development evidence has shown research that even the east-Asian economic development has a lot to do with the return on human capital and the stage, sector of education that does best is tertiary education,”
he noted. “It has the highest return on economic development and so the federal government should be concerned about quality,access and sustainability but this is the problem here.”
Amadi acknowledged that poor public investment in higher education has fueled the rise of private universities, “There are two aspect, one is that funding investment in public education especially those own by the state or federal government has not been good enough and so the economic exigences to first compete with private universities.”
Explaining while that numbered over 50 in Nigeria. “Look at the rate in which by now about 50 or more particular universities are now privately owned and they seem to be reaching out getting to people where they are and providing more assess and so I think it’s economic exigency for federal and state universities to also want to kind of be more flexible.
“And get themselves to the door-steps of working class people and that explains the phenomenon of satellite universities where they want to compete for the market to supplement what they get and so that economic incentive is driving it as well.”
According to Amadi, while the economic incentive behind satellite campuses is understandable, they must be properly regulated. “But basic approval should be a commendable step because at the same time government want to make sure that there is balance between entrepreneurship economic benefit returns to investors and quality of education.”
“NUC oversight is necessary to ensure a balance between educational quality, entrepreneurial investment, and national development goals,” he said. “In the case of federal universities government is an investor but often times the bearucracy, the management,the faculty,the senate and the vice chancellor themselves are also with bigger budget they get better pay or better allowances or even better prestige that third school is expanded, so what you think is missing here is this should be collected not just to controlling the federal university from creating Satallite but ensuring as well that these satellite centers are also serving strategic national educational purposes.”
He also cited India’s education model as an example, where even lower-tier institutions play a vital role in building the national skills base. “Look at India, for example there is an argument for expanding access even if you pick at the top of center of excellence the bottom could be any-how schools if you put it that way but essentially even though they are not top-notch they provide strategic support for basic skills that you need to an economy.
In conclusion, Amadi stressed the need to align regulation with two core objectives, maintaining academic standards and expanding access through innovation and flexibility. “so we should balance this regulatory intervention with two core objectives of ensuring standards and as well as creating opportunities for expansion of access and flexibility.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
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