Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions and Education Laws

Abstract

The study investigated Nigeria’s tertiary institutions and education laws. Without education laws, tertiary institutions would be in a state of anarchy. The study is beneficial to students, members of academic communities, curriculum developers, education administrators, the National Universities Commission (NUC), the Federal/States Ministries of Education, and its parastatal. Historical and case study designs were adopted. The doctrinal method was used in data collection. The primary sources of data were the Education Ordinance 1887, Education Code 1903, Education Ordinance 1928, Education Ordinance 1916, Education Code 1926, Education Ordinance 1948, Education Act 1952, Education Edicts 1966-1979, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, Education Law 1999 and the Universal Basic Education Act 2004; sources of secondary data were published textbooks, scholarly peer-reviewed journals, and articles. Data were content-analysed, compared, contrasted, and presented thematically. The research findings were that students, academics, and non-academic members of staff of the schools should know education laws. The teaching of education laws should be a continuous exercise in all tertiary institutions. It was recommended that the NUC, the National Board of Technical Education, and the National Commission for Colleges of Education should introduce education laws as a course in the curriculum, to be registered for and passed by each student of the institutions before graduation. The management of the schools should train and retrain their students, academics, and non-academic members of staff on education laws regularly. Anybody who does anything contrary to the education laws of the institutions should face its consequences.