By Our Staff Writer
On Wednesday, March 19th, 2025, Professor Toyin Falola, Africa’s most decorated humanity scholar and Nigeria’s most preeminent historian, will inaugurate the Founders’ Day lecture at Atiba University, Oyo, Oyo State.
When contacted, Prof Falola said he considers it an honour and privilege that the Management of the University, extended the invitation to him to deliver a lecture to its team of highly cerebral teachers and students. He is going to speak on “Rethinking Tertiary Education in Nigeria through Private Universities for Sustainable Development,” on March 19 at 10 am Nigeria time.
In a paper already released to the media, Falola considers inadequate finance, crammed classes, declining quality, and a widening discrepancy between graduate competency and industry standards as the most significant or major challenges plaguing Nigeria’s public tertiary education ecosystem. Against the backdrop of the faltering inability of public universities to meet the demands for their offerings, he argues that private universities offer a viable alternative or substitute. Private universities provide students with contemporary facilities, a disciplined study atmosphere, and a curriculum tailored to worldwide standards.
In this significant maiden, Falola considers how private universities may support sustainable development through innovation, increased research possibilities, and closing the talent gap, thereby fostering private institutions. He looks at how they may improve access to educational options, fix government institution inefficiencies, and help the economy grow. This major lecture further discusses policy options for enhancing the quality of education given by private universities in Nigeria. He shows how policy actions will guarantee that education is reasonably priced and encourage alliances between the public and commercial sectors to raise educational standards.
He divided his talk into six parts. He briefly overviews the challenges in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector, with private universities emerging as a viable alternative and the importance of aligning higher education with sustainable development. He then moves to Part II, where he examines Nigeria’s state of tertiary education. Here, he looks at the challenges facing tertiary education in Nigeria, such as inadequate government funding and its impact on public universities, overpopulation in public institutions, declining academic quality, and the disconnect between academic curricula and industry demands. In Part III, Falola’s lecture analyzes the role of private universities in addressing these challenges. He considers some selling points of private universities, such as smaller class sizes and better learning environments; investment in modern facilities and technology-driven education; stronger links with industries for practical training and employability; and research and innovation contributions to national development, and how these make private universities a viable alternative to their public university counterparts.
Falola situates private universities within sustainable development, looking at how they contribute to sustainable development by producing graduates with relevant skills for Nigeria’s economy, encouraging entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency, fostering innovation through research and development, and enhancing global competitiveness in education. He offers policy recommendations: the government should support private universities through favorable policies, public-private partnerships to improve access and affordability, strengthening quality assurance and accreditation system, and encouraging investment in research and development. The lecture closes by making a call to action on stakeholders, including government, educators, and investors, while emphasizing the need for a collaborative approach to redefine tertiary education for Nigeria’s sustainable future.
Professor Sunday Olawale Okeniyi, the Vice-Chancellor, said all the members of the public are invoted to attend the lecture.
