The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC), Prof Abubakar Rasheed, has disclosed that about 150 new private universities would be granted operating licence by 2019.
Rasheed, who was speaking at the Ondo State University of Medical Science in Akure, over the weekend, said the 150 new private universities would be established in the next three years.
He said, “Presently, 243 applications are being processed for private universities, so in the next two to three years, we will have about 150 private universities.”
Prof. Rasheed said anyone calling for the stoppage of issuance of license to more universities was ignorant.
According to him, Nigerian universities cannot isolate themselves from the rest of the world, adding that Argentina has 1705 universities despite its population of about 44 million.
He noted that several other developing countries with lesser population than Nigeria had over 300 universities.
