The Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, has decried the low ranking of African universities worldwide.
The minister spoke on Sunday in Abuja at the Forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
She said that to reverse the trend, the African Union (AU) had decided to invest in universities in each region of Africa to improve their quality and make them reference points.
Rufa’i noted that no African university was usually ranked whenever there was talk of quality universities in the world.
“So in that case, African Union has a concern and said why not in Africa? In all the regions of Africa, why can’t we select one university per region?
“And then we now invest our resources in that university for the region, but then as a reference point for the whole continent,” she said.
Rufa’i explained that it was that concern that led to the selection of the University of Ibadan as the reference point for the West African sub-region.
The minister stated that the university emerged victorious in a contest with universities in Senegal and Togo.
“We competed against Senegal and Togo to be able to have a university in Nigeria in terms of University of Ibadan, you know at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“Then we were given different themes for West Africa. The theme that we were given is, “Arts and Life Sciences.’’
She said that the benefit of the selection of the University of Ibadan was that it could now attract students from other African countries to enrol there to learn in a centre of excellence.
News Agency of Nigeria
Rufai, or what do you call yourself, deleveoping a model universities will not help, unfortunately. As a minister whay cant you just strenghten and enforce the policcies that that established these universities, proper funding, prosecuting the lecturers that practise ‘sleep with me and pass’ policy. Modernise the courses available in your univerisities, some courses are just full of irrelevant and outdated syllabus and subjects, ther ar many more you can do. However, having a model university will make the university to be oversubscribed by wealth Nigerians and the purpose of its establishment will not be attained, quota system and bribery will not allow the best candidates to get admitted. Delevoping the present universities will be a better option
Mr O Adeniyi, I totally agree with you.
@Adeniyi. Looking at what you have incoherently, with evil spelling written, I don’t see why you should comment on this subject. I see you pretend to be staying in the UK. Are you a toilet cleaner or whatever there? This is best left to those who can read and write,and know what a university and its role are, not some semi-illiterate impostor. I agree fully with the Minister. But they must not emulate European models as their constituencies and objectives are dissimilar. They need to emphasize relevance to Africa.