University Education Not For Everybody -UNILAG Don

A professor of counselling at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, has disclosed that only five percent of students who apply for admission in the institution get admitted, saying that university education is not for everybody.

Prof. Ngozi Osarenren

Speaking this morning on Channels Television programme called Sunrise, Prof. Ngozi Osarenren, revealed that out of at least 100,000 candidates who applied for the last admission only 5,000 were admitted.
“At least 100,000 candidates chose the University of Lagos as their first choice, but we could only admit 5,000,” she said.
Osarenren explained that the university’s infrastructure such as classrooms have not been expanded over the years to accommodate the growing number of applicants.
“The same classrooms we are using today are the same classrooms that we were using many years ago,” she said.
The university don also stunned Sunrise’s anchors by saying that university education is not for everybody.
“It’s called ivory tower, it’s not for everybody. Why does everybody want to go to university when there are technical colleges, polytechnics and so on?” she asked.
Osarenren faulted Nigerian senators who are calling for the scrapping of the post-JAMB exams in various institutions, saying that the focus must be on capital development of the universities and not how universities admit students.
“The same facilities are run down, they are not being expanded, why should we admit more than our capacity?” she asked.
She said that at least 200,000 Nigerians are studying in Ghanaian universities with each of them paying between 10,000 and 12,000 US dollars.
She wondered why Nigerians are against increasing school fees at home when they are spending so much abroad.
She said the level of education in Ghana remains far below that of Nigeria, adding that students rush to Ghana because of certainty of admission and stable calendar.
“When I was in Ghana, I was the first female professor of counselling in that university,” she said.