The National Universities’ Commission (NUC) has raised alarm over the existence of what it termed “mushroom universities” abroad.
It said that the establishment of such schools in some African countries target Nigerian students to defraud them.
NUC Executive Secretary, Abubakar Rasheed, stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, 8th October, while speaking at the 11th International Conference and Workshop on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa.
The English professor and head of the university system regulator highlighted the challenge of such schools awarding degrees in less than three years and warned Nigerians that NUC would not accept such degrees.
“We are pained when we are confronted by employers of labour in this country trying to get us to interpret qualifications. In Africa, many countries allow their universities to graduate their students with degrees in less than two years.
“Unfortunately, some of our sister countries allow universities to be established for nationals of other countries and when we write to some of these countries, the reply we get is that the institutions are legally registered.
“There have been reports of many Nigerians who go to Ghana, Togo, and many other African countries to study in mushroom universities that are predominantly Nigerian students.”
EduCeleb.com understands that graduates of some foreign universities have been facing challenges completing the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The NYSC Director-General, Shuaibu Ibrahim had revealed recently that some of them could barely read and write.
Mr Ibrahim, a brigadier general, had also previously made reference to something similar to what Rasheed said when he said that some fake graduates were being aided by university administrators.
The NUC boss alluded to the instances of them attending institutions where degrees are completed in less than three years as a reason behind that.
