The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has said that the growing number of universities in Nigeria is due to increasing pressure from lawmakers.
Alausa said this at the third edition of the 2025 Ministerial Press Briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
The Federal Government is facing growing calls to reform the country’s education sector, with nearly 200 bills in the National Assembly proposing the creation of new universities. There are concerns that the education system is becoming overwhelmed.
Alausa stressed that improving the capacity of existing universities is more important than opening new ones.
He explained that there is no need to keep pushing the president to approve new universities.
“We must focus on strengthening our existing institutions. We need to stop this from happening. There is too much pressure on the President, and we must be mindful of it. Lawmakers are passing too many bills,” he said.
“Currently, there are almost 200 bills in the National Assembly. We cannot keep going like this. Despite having many universities, they lack the capacity to admit enough students. What we need now is to improve their capacity so they can offer more relevant courses to our citizens,” he added.
Alausa also noted that university enrolment is not growing at the same rate as the number of universities.
