Education analyst Seyi Gesinde has stated that Nigeria’s tertiary education reforms under Education Minister Tunji Alausa are significantly expanding access to higher institutions. The reforms include exemptions from the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for Colleges of Education and certain agricultural courses, alongside changes to ordinary level admission requirements.
Speaking on the reforms, Gesinde referenced a Channels Television interview where Alausa explained that his policies are designed to address longstanding barriers that have prevented many qualified Nigerians from entering higher education. “They want to go to school,” Alausa said, adding that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s National Education Loan Fund has created financial access for all students, regardless of their background.
Admission Crisis Drives Reforms
According to Gesinde, the minister backed the reforms with statistics highlighting the scale of Nigeria’s tertiary admission gap. Alausa noted that approximately 2.2 million candidates take the UTME annually, but only about 770,000 gain admission, leaving 1.3 million students without places. This imbalance has forced many young Nigerians to repeatedly sit for entrance exams without success.
Gesinde said the reforms aim to tackle structural issues such as financial exclusion, rigid admission policies, and underutilized institutions.
Government Relaxes Admission Requirements
One of the early interventions by Alausa involved revising ordinary level requirements. “We said, if you are going to study Law, why do you need a credit in Mathematics? If you are going to study Science, why do you need credit in English? We abolished that,” Alausa stated. Under the revised policy, candidates for Arts, Law, and social science courses can proceed without compulsory Mathematics credits, while some science and engineering applicants may not require English credits.
The minister reported that these changes significantly increased admission numbers. “For the first time in our country’s history, last year we increased admissions from 770,000 to 1.1 million students,” he said, adding that nearly 400,000 more students were admitted.
UTME Exemptions Target Teachers, Agriculture Shortages
The reforms also include alternative admission pathways. The federal government recently approved the removal of UTME requirements for candidates applying to Colleges of Education and for non-technology agricultural courses in polytechnics and monotechnics. Alausa explained that this decision was based on data showing many Colleges of Education operating below capacity despite a national shortage of qualified teachers.
“We do all these things based on data, not abstraction,” the minister said. He projected that the latest changes could push annual admissions to about 1.5 million students, effectively doubling the figure from two years ago.
Reforms Linked to Food Security, Curriculum Review
Alausa linked the agricultural course exemptions to Nigeria’s broader food security agenda. “The exemptions are for people going into colleges of education and people going to monotechnics or polytechnics to study non-technology agriculture courses, and there is a reason for that. We need that to help food security in our country,” he explained. The education ministry is also reviewing agricultural curricula to align with mechanized farming and technology-driven agriculture, with a new curriculum expected by the end of the year.
Student Loan Scheme at Centre of Reforms
Central to the reforms is the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), which provides tuition and upkeep support for students from low-income families. Government figures indicate that hundreds of billions of naira have been disbursed to students nationwide. Gesinde said the reforms are aimed at expanding educational opportunities in a country where access to higher education has long been constrained by poverty and institutional bottlenecks.
While critics have raised concerns about infrastructure deficits, lecturer shortages, and the capacity of institutions to absorb rising enrolment, Gesinde argued that the reforms represent a major shift toward lowering barriers to tertiary education rather than tightening them.
FG Retains 16-Year Entry Age for Universities
In a related development, the federal government has retained 16 years as the minimum admission age for tertiary institutions. Alausa made this disclosure on Monday, May 11, in Abuja during his address at the 2026 Policy Meeting on admissions, organized by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
