The National Universities Commission (NUC) has approved the establishment of another State University, situated in Ilesha, Osun State, Southwest, Nigeria.
The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Professor Adamu Rasheed; while presenting the operational license to the Governor of Osun State, said that the newly approved university named the ’’University of Ilesha’’ is the 60th State and 220th University in Nigeria.
The Executive Secretary of the NUC said the university is now to operate as a full fledge conventional university with a focus on Agriculture, Agri-business, food insecurity, mining technology and Medical Sciences.
He said with the approval, the National Youth Service Corps, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) would accord the university necessary recognitions.
He said “We are very happy with the level of support your government has given to the newly established federal University, Ila Orangun in Osun State”
“111 are private universities and the much of them have a combine student enrolment of 6 percent, the bulk of the students are in public universities as last year we saw that the total percentage of students in the public universities is 94 percent”
“The country now has 220 universities and compared to our counterparts and with our internal democracy the NUC says that we have not started in our journeys of establishing universities”
’’The total number of students in Nigeria universities is a little above 2 million when the total population is around a 200 million at any point in time but at any point in time we don’t have more than 1 percent of our total population in our universities and this figure is much lower than other countries comparable to us in our development’’
With the establishment of the University of Ilesha, Osun State now has two state universities and two federal universities which are Obafemi Awolowo University OAU and Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila Orogun
Deliberate approach
The Governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola, said the State is deliberate in its approach as it seeks to contribute to the diversification of Nigeria’s economy and wean it away from overreliance on oil.
He said the State has identified credible candidates for the Governing Council and Principal Officers, ready to be appointed.
He also disclosed that in March 2022, the state converted the state’s college of Education to serve as the university facility.
“The outgoing College of Education facilities are more than sufficient to conveniently accommodate the University in the first phase of its development. We have made adequate provisions for the students of the College of Education to complete and better their careers as the life of the College of Education comes to an end”. He said
Oyetola recently assented to the law seeking to upgrade the Osun State College of Education Ilesa, to a full-fledged University.
The Governor’s assent followed the successful passage of the Executive Bill into Law by the Osun State House of Assembly in August.
Present at the presentation of the license was the Former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, Former Governor of Osun State, Bisi Akande, Prof. Oni the State House of Assembly Speaker amongst others.
Olusola Akintonde
