Replenishing the stock of requisite manpower the country needs to grapple with the challenges of the new millennium lies not necessarily with the proliferation of universities, but largely with the expansion of the facilities in existing universities.

Immediate past Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola, made the disclosure while recently delivering the 6th Convocation Lecture of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, entitled, “Quality or Quantity: Positioning the Nigerian University System for the Challenges of Science and Technology in the New Millennium.”

The professor of Science Education, who rhetorically asked, “Do we require 141 universities to serve the need of Nigeria in the provision of high-level human resources? Can we not meet the same need with 60 or even 100 better-resourced and well-run universities,” added, “We must embark on massive upgrading of physical facilities in existing universities to take in at least additional 1, 000 students per year. This will involve more classrooms, hostels, laboratories, workshops, libraries and offices.

He pointed out that”… if we desire 10 per cent annual increase in enrolment in the nation’s 141 public and private universities, we will require N1, 494.6b (about N1.5 trillion) in 10 years. Of this sum, the 40 federal universities will require N424b, while the 40 state universities will require the same amount. The remaining N646.6b will have to be sourced by private universities from their proprietors.

“Having added about one million spaces in 10 years through the expansion project of existing universities, the next step is to add 300, 000 more spaces through a gradual increase in the number of universities. A few additional universities can be licensed in the next five years by the NUC, some to emerge from upgrades of selected polytechnics and colleges of education to degree-awarding institutions.”

Okebukola also called on the government and other stakeholders in the education sector to develop and promote elite corps of scientists to help Nigeria to achieve cutting-edge research and tackle the challenges of science and technology in the 21st Century.
He said, “It needs to be stressed that in spite of the desire for an upswing in the number of scientists, there is a greater need for an elite corps of such scientists that will be at the cutting edge of research such as is found in the Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA Jet Propulsion laboratories in the United States,” adding that, “The giant strides attained by developed nations through harnessing the power of science and technology come about largely by the ingenuity and efforts of a handful of an elite corps of scientists.”

While stressing the need for a balance between quantity and quality, the former executive scribe said the Nigerian university system must play more active roles in using science and technology as tools to fasten the pace of development of the country.

He further emphasised the need to pay greater attention to certain programmes that would lead to the production of skilled-human resources in specific areas, including agriculture, science and technology, and specialised engineering programmes.

“We also need to reformat our curriculum to respond to jobs of the future.