The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council of Crawford University in Igbesa, Ogun State; Prof. Peter Okebukola, has described Nigerian education system as being among the best in Africa.

This is contrary to the belief in some quarters that the country’s education system is one of the worst in the world.

Speaking at the 6th convocation ceremony of the university on Wednesday, Okebukola explained that those who think the Nigerian education system is the worst in the world might not have seen what obtains in other African countries, adding that the country’s education system is better than those of many other African countries in terms of curriculum, staff and students.

Okebukola, who is a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, noted that even though Nigeria’s education sector is bedevilled with poor infrastructure, no African nation would match the country’s university system if the infrastructure challenge is improved upon.

He said an assessment by a team that he was a part of, which was commissioned by the African and European Unions, revealed the level of education system in Africa, but only looked at national systems and failed to dig deep to the level of institutions.

He said, “During the course of this year, I had an opportunity to visit several universities within and outside Africa through a project commissioned by the African Union and the European Union. We found a very poor quality of higher education system in all the 54 African countries that we studied in comparison with universities in Europe and North America.

“And with this gloomy picture, it is bitter sweet to note that the Nigerian education system rates among the best in Africa as against those who think Nigeria is running the worst university education in the world.

“It is proverbially said that if you have not visited the farm of others, you would think your father’s farm is the best or the worst, thus, we found out in going to all the universities in Africa that aside from South Africa and Egypt, our data showed that no other national university system in Africa matched the quality of curriculum, quality of staff and quality of students of the Nigerian university system.

“On the not so pleasing side, our data showed that relative to many other countries in Africa, Europe and North America, Nigerian universities are very poor in infrastructure and reading culture is poor among our students.”