However, stakeholders are divided on whether the achievement is an accurate reflection of the nation’s higher education system, considering incessant strikes by various academic unions.
The remaining three universities ranked in the last category of 1501+ include Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta , Ladoke Akintola University of Technology and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka. Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences of Tanzania, a newcomer into the rankings, joined the world top 500 universities. In comparison with the rest of the best-ranked universities in Africa, Muhimbili is relatively new, as it was carved out from the University of Dar es Salaam and only accorded full-fledged university status by the Tanzania Commission for Universities in 2007.
Baumforth said: “Our researchers provided a rigorous overview of a university’s quality, drawing on an analysis of 15.5 million research publications, 121 million citations and over 40,000 responses to an annual academic reputation survey.” The sector has been deprived of adequate funding with dearth of infrastructure, poor welfare, inadequate staffing being part of the challenges impeding the sector and hampering effective learning across primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.Stakeholders were however divided on how Nigeria was able to double its number of ranked universities.
“No doubt, Nigerian universities have their challenges, but this is not to say that the quality of education they provide is not good. “Most times when you see lecturers’ unions fighting the government, it is because we are looking at where we are and how to improve on it. We fight the government to provide necessary funds to do this.
An education consultant, Timothy Benson, said: “It is clear that universities cannot perform beyond their capacity. Deprived of the needed funding for teaching and research, lecturers make do with what is available, at times, embarking on strikes to press home their demands and the result is what international, disinterested assessors put before the rest of the world about the tertiary institution the country runs and owns.
On his part, Dr Adenike Oluokun of Adeleke University, Ede, said based on the identified problems confronting university education, there is need for adequate funding, quality teaching, research and paper publication in recognised journals, ensuring academic collaboration, employment of international lecturers, admission of international students as well as collaboration with private institutions to boost industry income and developing internationalisation policy on higher education.