Five Influential Private Universities In The Southeast

Whenever Universities are mentioned in Nigeria, the big boys stand up. Most of the times, these big boys are federally-owned. They have amassed decades of experience and faculties, departments, divisions, affiliates with their attendant structures, staff, and an army of alumni. When you make the call about the time for graduation, the so-called big boys move away and private universities take the front bench.

This is one huge advantage private universities have over public ones. For all the talks about private universities being run like secondary schools with night curfews, limited use of phones, and a parental-like grip on dressing and general conduct, private universities are free of all kinds of disruptions and they are beginning to catch up infrastructural, and to attract top academics, and building up their brigade of alumni.

Private universities are worth considering in today’s world where it isn’t really about what you studied in the four corners of the classroom, where it is about the connection and the freedom to explore your creativity. Here are influential private universities in the Southeast. In the order in which they were founded.

Madonna University, Okija

Madonna University was founded by the Very Reverend Emmanuel Mathew Paul Edeh of the Catholic Church in 1999 and he has remained the chancellor of the institution till date. The university is not just the first private university in the Southeast, it holds the distinction as the first private university to be approved in Nigeria.

Whatever private university you consider to be the best in the nation, Madonna opened the door, they inspired the culture of private organizations and individuals helping to shape the education system. They broke the government monopoly of tertiary education and gave millions of Nigerian students an option away from the politics and shenanigans of the disruptive duo of FG and ASUU.

Their decades of existence have had impacts on their development. They have eight faculties including the faculties of engineering and pharmacy which are seldom seen in other private universities, and the rarest of them all, a college of medicine with a teaching university in their Elele Campus in Rivers State. They also offer JUPEB and pre-degree courses, diploma, and certificate courses.

Madonna University has a third campus in Akpugo, Nkanu West Local Government, Enugu State.

Madonna has over 12 thousand students in its 33 courses, making it one of the countable private universities in the nation with a huge alumni base able to rival most public universities. Nedu Wazobia and a certain Cee C were in this school.

According to UniRank, Madonna gives admission to up to 80% of its applicants. This is a welcome bonus in a country where millions write JAMB year after year and remain without admission. Madonna, in spite of its many controversies, is a school that should be considered (if you can pay the fees).

Caritas University, Amorji-Nike Enugu

The subject is private universities in the Southeast, it’s incomplete without Caritas. Caritas University is one was founded by Rev. Emmanuel Edeh, the same founder of Madonna. The Reverend founded Caritas in 2004 through the Congregation of Sisters of Jesus the Saviour, a Catholic sect of nuns. The school kicked off with 250 students in May 2005.

The university has since grown to six faculties of 30 departments. Caritas is a scienced-niched university tailored after famed Federal Universities of Technologies in the country (offering education and arts as a faculty). Their strength is in engineering, natural sciences, and environmental science where they offer courses in architecture, estate management, and Urband and regional planning.

For a university heading to its 20th year of existence, Caritas has not grown so much when compared to schools set up at around the same time, elsewhere. If you suspect that the founder has directed more attention and resources to Madonna, you could be right.

Tansian University, Umunya

Tansian University, shortened TASU, is a university that was founded in 2007 by Rev Prof John Bosco Akam, a well-travelled and scholarly Catholic priest. The university was given approval by the authorities in 2009. Located in Umunya, Oyi Local Government Area, about 15 kilometres from the on-construction Anambra Airport in Umuleri. There is also a satellite campus in Oba, near Onitsha.

With 36 courses in six faculties, Tansian has a rather robust academic programme. They also offer ten courses on weekend part-time basis. This is where their Oba Campus located between the commercial cities of Nnewi and Onitsha come into in giving Main Market and Nkwo Nnewi and Spare Parts traders a shot at citadel qualifications.

See the ten most influential radio stations in the Southeast

Tansian is ranked 126 of the 170 universities in Nigeria and well below many of its fellow private universities by the UniRank. This is rather low considering their age and when compared to their avowed competition Madonna University.

Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu

Godfrey Okoye University Enugu was granted approval by National Universities Commission in November 2009 when it was founded by the Catholic Diocese of Enugu. The diocese is mostly given credit for this university but it was the idea of one man, Very Reverend Father Professor Christian Anieke who has been the vice-chancellor since day one.

GOU offers 45 approved undergraduate courses in five faculties of Law, Natural and Applied Sciences, Management and Social Sciences, Arts, and Education. They over postgraduate courses in fifteen departments of three faculties.

Located in Thinkers Corner, Enugu, the university is mostly known by the common man by its brilliant and popular radio station, GOU FM on 106.9. GOU has a scholarship programme that offers tuition-free courses to deserving students (we are unable to independently verify this but the fact it is on their website should count for something).

Perhaps GUO’s strongest selling point is its partnership with universities in Europe, the United States, South Africa, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The university is up there with the best private universities in the land.

Coal City University, Enugu

Coal City University was founded in 2016 and began operations with 484 students on the 1st of May, 2017. CCU is located domiciled in two areas – there is the campus in Emene outskirts of Enugu and one in Independence Layout, the heart of Enugu.

The university offers courses in ten departments of three faculties, and with less than 1000 students, it should be the smallest higher institution in the region, but this is also a strength in that it has the best lecturer student ratio of any university we know.

With its series of partnership programmes, Coal City University is a school to watch out for.

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