Ibadan Journal of the Social Sciences
Volume 5, No. 1, 2007
Pages 1-15
DOI: 10.36108/ijss/7002.50.0110
The Quality of Nigeria’s Private Universities
Olayiwola A. Erinosho
Department of Sociology
Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State City
Abstract
This paper examines the quality of private universities in Nigeria. Three private universities were studied two mission-sponsored and one privately-owned — using six indicators of quality assurance as outlined by Ekhaguere (2001) in a similar work on African universities. Collected data indicate that: the institutions offer academic programmes in the sciences, humanities, and most especially, in the social and management sciences; while there is gender parity among students, there is disparity among staff; the mission-established institutions are better positioned to provide quality education. These mission-established universities however, need to strengthen their staff and improve on access to information and communication technologies. There is also room for improvement in the provision of physical facilities. The study concludes that while it may be worthwhile to encourage private investors in higher education, this should not be done at the expense of public universities because the latter’s academic programmes are more diversified than those which are offered by the private universities.
Keywords: Private universities, public universities, SAP, quality, gender parity, Nigeria and Africa