Nigeria's top banker invests in new university to boost skills

Herbert Wigwe, the co-founder and CEO of Access Bank, Nigeria's largest bank by assets, has announced his plans to invest in a new university that will focus on developing skills for the finance and technology sectors in the country. 

Wigwe University, which will start admitting students for undergraduate courses next year, will offer programmes in management, science and engineering, information technology, and creative arts. The university aims to enroll 1,400 students in its first year and 10,000 students in five years. The project will require an investment of up to $500 million to scale up in that five years, reported Bloomberg.

The institution, located in Rivers State, will be hybrid, blending home based and foreign faculty members, with 30% of its teaching staff from the UK and the US.

The establishment of Wigwe University is expected to help in preparing Nigerian graduates to meet the increasing and dynamic demands of the global market place.

“Wigwe University will be offering a refreshed curriculum that reflects the future of jobs,” Wigwe told Business Day in an interview last month.

“This is important because we recognise that as good as the old traditional curriculum was, it does not provide people with the relevant skills to thrive. This refreshed curriculum would match any available in the best universities in the world.”

Boosting access to higher education with private sector-led investments

Herbert Wigwe’s investment in the new university is a positive development for private sector-led investments in Nigeria’s higher education sector.

Private institutions, over the years, have seen dramatic growth due to the government support for the private sector to fill the gap in higher education, as public universities struggle to accommodate an increasing number of qualified applicants for places.

Of the 1.8 million candidates who applied for places last year, only about 600,000, or 33.3%, were admitted, according to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which conducts exams into tertiary institutions.

To meet the growing demand for higher education in Nigeria, the country’s National Universities Commission (NUC) has been moving ahead with a major expansion of Nigeria’s private higher education sector.

In June, the NUC granted operational licences to 37 newly approved private universities, including Wigwe University. The approval increased the number of private universities in Nigeria to 147, bringing the country’s overall university tally to 264.

The NUC is also working to support foreign universities looking to establish their presence in Nigeria by drafting guidelines on transnational education. These guidelines will enable foreign universities become active players in providing and expanding access to university education in Nigeria.