The Universities

Selection Criteria

Four universities were selected by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to be the initial beneficiaries of the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation.

The institutions were selected for a variety of reasons. These include:

Sense of innovation on campus,
Strength of faculty,
Qualities of leadership and governance,
Strength of student leadership,
Prospect of support from other sources (government, foundations, private sector),
Institution’s history and presence so as to provide a demonstration effect.

Common to all selected institutions, is a strong leadership team working in close collaboration with the faculty ready to invest time and effort in institutional reform.

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria [view profile]
- West Africa’s largest university with 81 academic departments, 35,000 students, and 500,000 alumni.
- Identified as a first class Architecture School and innovator of Agriculture research.

Bayero University, Kano [view profile]
- Nigeria's leading academic institution for Cultural Studies.
- In the last decade, the University has focused its efforts on developing science programs in engineering, medicine and recently, agriculture.

University of Ibadan, Ibadan [view profile]
- As the nations oldest university, it has become internationally recognized for its strong Social Science faculty and College of Medicine.
- It is now designated a postgraduate university, training thousands to meet the needs of the labour market.

University of Nigeria, Nsukka [view profile]
The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), is the first indigenous university in Nigeria.
- Has a current student population of over 30,000
- Has demonstrated, over the years, numerous remarkable breakthroughs in many areas of research.

University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt [view profile]
- One of the second generation Federal Universities, it is located in the Niger Delta region.
- Initially, the academic disciplines of the University were organized in six schools of study. It is now a traditional academic structure of faculty and departmental system.