Access to university education in Africa was inadequate during the colonial period. With independence, various African countries moved away from the elitist colonial education system by embarking on programs designed to provide education to all, regardless of class, ethnicity, or creed. Nowhere in Africa has the question of access to university education reached such a crescendo of concern and posed such as challenge to the polity as in Nigeria. In illuminating the history of massification of university education in Nigeria, Anyanwu makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the challenges of nation-building in multi-ethnic and religious societies in Africa and demonstrates that the intractable issues in Africa's university education system - such as academic quality, relevance, funding, and unemployment - flow from the creation and adoption of the massification system.

Ogechi Anyanwu is an associate professor in the Department of History and African/African-American Studies at Eastern Kentucky University.

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