DIVERSIFICATION FOR SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE NEED FOR CURRICULUM REVIEW IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The world is gradually changing and it is pertinent for university administrators to follow emerging trends in university education. Due to the dynamism of the 21^st century university education, the university curriculum requires a massive diversification in line with the ongoing university educational trends. Diversification in the university educational system requires the expansion of the scope of the university curriculum into varieties that would allow for creativity, innovation, self-dependency and would eventually lead to sustainable national development. The aim of this paper is to enhance the diversification of curriculum in Nigerian universities to bring about sustainable national development. The objective of this paper is to identify modes of achieving diversification within the Nigerian university curriculum. Some of the modes of achieving diversification in Nigerian university educational curriculum include the introduction of entrepreneurship, e-learning, ICT and software training, amongst others. The challenges faced in the diversification of the Nigerian university curriculum for the attainment of sustainable national development were discussed in this paper to include lack of funds, lack of adequate facilities, poor reception to change, amongst others. It was concluded in this paper that the main focus of university administrators should be the diversification of the university curriculum to allow for their students to adapt to modern day trends in university education and to enable these students compete intellectually and innovatively with their global peers. Possible solutions to the challenges discussed in this paper were proffered to include provision of adequate funds, provision of adequate facilities, adaptation to current global trends in university education, amongst others.