Date: 2019-12-17

A Professor of the Performing Arts at the University of Ilorin, Professor Abdulrasheed Abiodun Adeoye, has advised the federal government to stop establishing more universities.

This is as he urged the federal government to declare the nation's education as a crisis-ridden sector, saying doing so would enable the government in conjunction with stakeholders formulate policies that would strengthen the sector.

Adeoye, who is the Dean of Arts in the University of Ilorin, spoke to journalists in Ilorin where he flayed the proliferation of universities in the country as nauseating.

He urged the government to stop creating more universities but rather elevate selected universities in the nation's geopolitical zones to mega status. "If federal government is actually serious and I hope and pray one day it will, beef up the budget allocation to education; stop establishing universities. It is becoming nauseating. It shouldn't be "Aso Ebi" kind of, otherwise we would be talking about glorified secondary schools. The universities that we have are enough, all we needed to do is to make them mega universities.

For instance in the six geopolitical zones, we select two universities each, making 12 and turn them to mega universities, where we can have close to an average of eight satellite campuses.

Each faculty will domicile in a major town. That is the concept we have in the Osun State University. Each faculty separately and in the next 20 years, they become universities of their own. Somebody should just say let us do this concept, not proliferation of universities. It is now a status symbol", the don added.