Cross-section of students displaying their robotic skills at the World Robotic Olympiad tournament in Lagos
… as over five million UTME applicants were shut out in five years
Education experts are calling for public-private partnerships and wider adoption of online universities to expand tertiary education capacity after more than five million Nigerians failed to secure university admission over the past five years.
Nigeria’s higher education system admitted only a fraction of prospective students between 2021 and 2025, leaving over five million (65 percent) of tertiary institution applicants without admission, according to data from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Not less than 8,806,743 million applicants were registered by JAMB between 2021 and 2025, with only 3,118,598 admitted and 5,688,144 applicants without admission.
Data from JAMB revealed that in 2021, out of 1,400,000 candidates who registered for the UTME, only 312,666 got admitted, leaving 1,087,333 without admission.
In 2022, 1,800,000 were registered, and 557,625 were admitted, while 1,242,375 were shut out; 2023 had 1,635,881 applicants, and 639,263 were admitted, leaving out 996,618 applicants.
The story was the same in 2024, as 1,940,000 applied, with 600,000 admitted and 1,340,000 without admission; while in 2025, 2,030,862 applied, 1,009,044 million admitted, and 1,021,818 shut out.
Stanley Alaubi, senior lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, attributed the admission crisis to a lack of quality faculties to accommodate the surging number of applicants, and he advocates for collaboration between the government and the private sector.
“The government alone can’t build enough universities fast enough, so a public-private partnership (PPP) is the fastest way to close the gap,” he said.
Across the globe, many countries have built more viable tertiary institutions, which Nigeria can emulate by providing land and regulatory approvals while allowing private investors to build, equip, and run the universities.
Alaubi emphasised that the government can adopt a build-operate-transfer approach, a system he said allows the private sector to build and run the institutions for 25-30 years and then hand the institutions over to the public.
Besides, he said the government can expand access by supporting private universities, such as by extending the TETFund intervention to include accrediting private universities for research and infrastructure grants.
“There is a need to encourage public-private digital/open universities to accommodate those who could not make it into the traditional institutions,” he said.
Online universities would help curb the admission crisis by bypassing physical infrastructure capacity and allowing institutions to admit exponentially larger cohorts.
They provide scalable, flexible, and cost-effective access to higher education for millions of qualified students who are locked out due to systemic capacity constraints and strict quotas.
Nigeria could realistically add up to one million spaces in the next five years instead of waiting 20 years for only public universities.
Jessica Osuere, chief executive officer at RubiesHubs Educational Services, is worried that too many candidates compete for too few spaces, especially in high-demand courses such as medicine, nursing, law, and engineering.
“Nigeria needs to expand the capacity of existing institutions, establish more quality tertiary institutions, and strengthen TVET and other alternative pathways,” she said.
Besides, she emphasised the need to give universities greater autonomy in admissions while maintaining transparent national quality standards.
“Until the supply of quality higher education matches the growing demand, admitting 70 to 80 percent of applicants will remain difficult,” she noted.
Isaiah Ogundele, a teacher, blames tertiary institutions’ admission crisis on a lack of world-class facilities that can accommodate as many students as possible and inadequate funding.
“Countries such as Canada, the UK and Germany, among others, can admit as many students as possible because both the private and public institutions receive grants from the government every year.
“Besides, these countries have world-class facilities that can accommodate as many students as possible,” he noted.
Tertiary institutions’ admission crisis can be curbed in Nigeria by paying adequate attention to the online and open university system.
Recently, Nigeria’s first private online/open university conferred degrees on over 1,200 graduands. One digital campus can admit 500,000 students at once, and this will help solve the space and lecturer shortage.
India, with a population of over 1.47 billion people, has a tertiary admission rate of about 34.4 percent. India is now the second-largest e-learning market in the world, after the United States.
The Indian edtech sector, valued at approximately $7.5 billion, is projected to reach US$30 billion by 2030-31, growing at a CAGR of 28.7 percent.
With over 900 million internet users, mobile data costs among the world’s lowest, and platforms like Physics Wallah, Unacademy, and UpGrad reaching tens of millions of students beyond metro India, digital education has become a genuine equaliser, reaching Tier II and Tier III cities where physical infrastructure still lags.
Geraldine Ekoh, a climate change and sustainability consultant, describes online education as the best, especially for working students.
“I think online education is one of the best options for working professionals. The flexibility it offers makes it much easier to balance work, studies, and personal responsibilities,” she said.
