Out of 1,400 universities across 92 countries ranked by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the year 2020, only four universities in Nigeria were ranked.
Nigeria’s private university, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State which is within the 401 to 500 category, was ranked the best and University of Ibadan (UI), in the category of 501 to 600, the second best.
With this ranking, Covenant University has consecutively maintained the first position in Nigeria for the past three years.
The University of Lagos (Unilag) in the category of 800 to 1000, came third and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) in the category of 1001+ came 4th.
According to the ranking institution, “The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The only university ranking to be independently audited by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, and trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts, this year’s league table provides great insight into the shifting balance of power in global higher education”.
In an early interview with the Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka, many factors are responsible for the poor ranking of the government universities in Nigeria.
Olayinka noted that poor funding is the major reason why government universities in Nigeria could not compete with their contemporaries as well as private universities in the country.
“We can’t be compared with some universities in the West like Cambridge and Oxford that have been in existence for 300 and 700 years respectively but in Africa, UI is a university to be reckoned with as a grade one university. For improvement, we need resources, more importantly, to be able to compete very well with the private universities, which is currently more strategic”.
Olayinka opined that apart from funding, the granting of universities’ autonomy will improve university system in Nigeria.
“Funding is our major challenge. Also, it will be very good if the federal government could grant Nigerian universities autonomy they deserve and stop applying federal character to Nigerian universities”.
