Feature
The Need To Prioritize Quality Over Quantity In Nigeria’s Tertiary Education System
-By Zik Gbemre
The expansion of tertiary education remains an important national objective. Increasing access to higher education and developing skilled human capital are essential for economic growth, technological advancement, and national development.
However, while the establishment of new tertiary institutions may appear to address educational needs, the execution and long-term sustainability of such initiatives require careful consideration.
Nigeria has established numerous universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and other tertiary institutions across the country, yet many continue to struggle with inadequate funding, poor infrastructure, obsolete facilities, limited research capacity, and declining academic standards.
The major challenge confronting Nigeria’s education sector today is not necessarily the shortage of tertiary institutions but the inability to adequately fund, maintain, and elevate existing ones to globally competitive standards.
Establishing more institutions without ensuring sustainable funding, qualified academic personnel, modern teaching facilities, well-equipped laboratories, functional libraries, advanced research centres, and effective institutional management only stretches already limited resources and risks creating more institutions that fall below acceptable standards.
Government policy should therefore shift its emphasis from quantity to quality. A world-class education system is not measured by the number of institutions established but by the quality of graduates produced, the strength of research and innovation, academic excellence, and the ability of institutions to compete internationally.
Many existing Nigerian tertiary institutions require urgent intervention. Numerous campuses lack modern lecture halls, functional laboratories, digital learning infrastructure, adequately equipped libraries, research facilities, student accommodation, and a proper maintenance culture.
Rather than continually creating new institutions, government should prioritize rehabilitating existing ones, improving teaching and learning conditions, strengthening research funding, attracting and retaining highly qualified lecturers, and creating an environment where students acquire globally competitive knowledge and practical skills.
Equally important is the quality of those entrusted with teaching. Recruiting academic staff should not be based solely on possession of university degrees or academic certificates.
A qualification on paper does not automatically translate into competence, mastery of a subject, research capability, or effective teaching ability. There is growing concern that many graduates produced by the current system lack the depth of knowledge, analytical skills, and practical competence expected of their qualifications.
Consequently, institutions should adopt more rigorous recruitment standards that assess subject-matter expertise, teaching competence, research potential, professional integrity, and continuous capacity development to ensure that only truly qualified educators are entrusted with shaping the next generation.
Any decision to establish new tertiary institutions should therefore be accompanied by a comprehensive sustainability framework, guaranteed funding, robust governance structures, and long-term strategic planning to prevent them from becoming neglected institutions that exist only in name.
Nigeria does not need more tertiary institutions that merely increase the statistics; it needs institutions capable of producing graduates who will drive innovation, industrialization, entrepreneurship, scientific research, and national transformation.
The future of Nigeria’s higher education system lies not in the endless proliferation of institutions but in building fewer, stronger, adequately funded, and globally competitive institutions that can serve as centres of excellence and contribute meaningfully to national development.
Zik Gbemre
July 24,2026
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