People still take a lot of pride in their academic qualifications; to add to that, people also take a lot of pride in the level of qualification they have attained- Primary School leaving certificate, Secondary School Leaving certificate, a certificate, a diploma or a Bachelor’s Degree. This also means that people take pride in the kind of institution they obtain these qualifications from. We could also add that people also take pride in the status of their attended institution; whether recognized and accredited or not. Given all these enhancers of human pride, Ogun state could strut their stuff and cat-walk on the walk-way of academic pride. The reason is simple, Ogun state has the highest number of Universities in Nigeria.
Ogun State and Tertiary Education
The National Universities Commission (NUC) rank most institutions based on their official accreditation; which is a function of the programmes offered to undergraduate and postgraduate students. On the basis of these, Ogun state has universities that are regarded as institutions that can offer Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate Degrees in various fields of study. These institutions range from public to private institutions and are predominantly supportive of the traditional methods or face-to-face format of knowledge sharing.
Ogun State; Pace Setters in University Education
Ogun state is one of the states located in the western part of Nigeria. It has a total number of 13 accredited universities which includes the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, two (2) state universities (Olabisis Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye and Tai Solarin Univeristy of Education, Ijebu Ode), and ten (10) private universities. These statistics ranks Ogun state first amongst states with such higher institutions of learning. These universities as earlier stated, comprises of both public and private universities.
Ogun state actually has about sixteen universities in total namely;
- Covenant University, Ota (established in 2002)
- Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (established in 1988)
- Babcock University, Ilishan Remo (established in 1999)
- Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye (established in 1982)
- Tai Solarin University of Eduaction, Ijebu-Ode (established in 2005)
- Redeemer’s University, Mowe (even though, this is now relocated to Ede, Osun State)
- Bells University of Technology, Ota (established in 2005)
- Crescent University, Abeokuta (established in 2005)
- Crawford University, Faith city, Igbesa (established in 2005)
- Mountain Top University, Makogi Oba (established in 2015
- South Western University, Okun Owa
- Chrisland University, Abeokuta (established in 2015)
- McPherson University, Seriki-Sotayo (established in 2012)
- Hallmark University, Ijebu-Itele (established in 2015)
- Christopher University, Mowe (established in 2015
- Moshood Abiola University of Science, Abeokuta (established as a polytechnic in 1979 but was recently upgraded from a polytechnic to a university of science and technology in 2017).
It is also worthy of note a remarkable number of the private universities are owned by religious organizations or bodies such as churches or different missions outfits. This also impacts on the tuition fees; some of the institutions have very affordable fees (usually the public universities), while others are very exorbitant (usually the private institutions).
References:
http://www.4icu.org/ng/ogun accessed 08/01/2019
http://www.nairaland.com/4538511/ogun-state-highest-number-universities accessed 08/01/2019
http://www.legit.ng/1161541-ogun-state-colleges-universities.html accessed 08/01/2019
http://www.m.guardian.ng/news/moshood-abiola-poly-upgrades-to-university-of-science-technology accessed 08/01/2018
Featured image source: simple.wikipedia.org
