By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo

Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has called for a paradigm shift in tertiary education to address the challenges facing the country and reposition universities for greater impact.

Alausa made the call while delivering a lecture at the grand finale of the 65th anniversary of Obafemi Awolowo University, held at the Oduduwa Hall, Ile-Ife, Osun State.

He said universities must reform their curricula to reflect 21st-century realities, particularly in digital literacy, innovation and entrepreneurship across academic disciplines.

Commending the founding fathers of the institution, the minister said OAU must continue to evolve with a forward-looking approach that produces graduates capable of solving problems and creating jobs.

A statement issued by the university’s Public Relations Officer, Abiodun Olarewaju, said the minister outlined nine key pillars for the future of higher education in Nigeria.

According to him, the proposed pillars include curriculum reform to meet 21st-century challenges, strengthening research and innovation systems, sustainable funding models, digital transformation and smart campus development, student-centred welfare systems, improved faculty welfare to curb brain drain, and stronger community engagement for national development.

He said the next phase of Nigeria’s higher education must focus on building a globally competitive and sustainable system.

“Let me now turn to the future. If the past 65 years were about building excellence, the next 35 years must be about engineering a sustainable, relevant and globally competitive model of higher education,” he said.

Alausa noted that the founding visionaries of the university succeeded through sacrifice, intellectual discipline and courage, despite limited resources and absence of modern technologies.

“Today, we face different challenges, but the same spirit that built Great Ife must now re-engineer it,” he added.

He stressed that the future of higher education in Nigeria cannot be achieved by government alone but through collaboration with forward-thinking institutions such as OAU.