The Federal Executive Council (FEC), chaired by President Bola Tinubu, has approved a seven-year moratorium on the establishment of new federal tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The suspension, announced after Wednesday’s FEC meeting, applies to federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education nationwide.
Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, explained that the move is aimed at halting the proliferation of tertiary institutions, which he said is draining resources, diluting quality, and worsening infrastructure decay.
“In Nigeria today, access to federal tertiary education is no longer the problem,” Alausa stated. “The challenge we face is the duplication of institutions, which reduces capacity, degrades infrastructure, and weakens manpower. If left unchecked, this will erode the global respect Nigerian graduates currently enjoy.”
According to the minister, Nigeria presently has 72 federal universities, 108 state universities, and 159 private universities, alongside hundreds of polytechnics, colleges of education, monotechnics, colleges of agriculture, health sciences, nursing schools, and innovation and enterprise institutions.
However, the surge in numbers is not matched by actual student demand or adequate funding. For the 2024–2026 academic sessions, around 2.1 million applicants sought admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions. Yet, statistics show that 199 universities had fewer than 99 applicants, while 34 universities had none at all.
The situation is similar in other tertiary categories, with 295 polytechnics attracting fewer than 99 candidates and 219 colleges of education struggling with low enrolment—64 of them recording zero applications.
Alausa highlighted an extreme case from northern Nigeria where a federal university had fewer than 800 students but employed over 1,200 staff. “This is simply not sustainable,” he said, stressing that scarce public funds are being wasted on underpopulated institutions while existing ones remain underdeveloped.
He noted that the government’s priority will now shift toward strengthening and expanding the capacity of current institutions rather than creating new ones.
Resources will be directed toward upgrading facilities, increasing manpower, and improving infrastructure in universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education to meet modern global standards.
“We need to raise the quality of our education system so that Nigerian graduates can continue to excel internationally,” Alausa emphasized.
He commended President Tinubu’s commitment to education reform, describing him as “instrumental” in pushing through the policy changes needed to deliver world-class education to Nigerians.
