Abstract:

Education is a key index of development and modernization. It has been documented that schooling improves productivity, health and reduces negative features of life such as child labour as well as bringing about empowerment. It is no longer news that none of the higher institutions in Nigeria was included in the ranking of the world’s best 1000 institutions. The visible decay in Nigeria’s numerous public Universities is indeed an issue that continues to bother education experts today. Half baked and unemployable graduates who lack the prerequisite skills such as problem solving, communication, interpersonal, teamwork, required to function in the workplace, are yearly being churned out from these institutions. This paper explores the essence of twenty-first century higher education that transforms from form to reality as well as from mathematics to life-matics. It aims at unraveling the challenges of Nigeria’s articulated national policy on tertiary education. It finds that the delivery of Nigerian higher education and University education in particular, is facing unprecedented challenges. Nigeria needs a world-class university system, to accelerate her development and make her relevant in the new modernity as an internationally competitive educational system is the first step in building an economy that will bring home the dividends of globalization which other developing economies throughout the world have been enjoying. It therefore proffers far reaching suggestions which would ensure the emergence of world class Universities that will accomplish the discovery of novel, economic empowerment, human/societal development and pragmatic solutions to correct for shortcomings in the qualities expected of tertiary institutions and their products in Nigeria.

Keywords:

Gaps, Quality Education, University, Nigeria.