Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Thursday said it was anti-human for individuals or institutions to establish schools for the purpose of making profit.
He stated this in Ilaramokin town near Akure after he was led on an inspection of Elizade University, a private institution owned by the Chairman of Elizade Group of Companies, Chief Michael Ade-Ojo.
Soyinka noted that the educational system in the country had collapsed and would require the efforts of all well meaning individuals in the society to revamp it.
He said, "The educational system in this country, as you know very well, had collapsed a long time ago and I think that private initiative in the sector will help in raising, pulling upward, the standard which our generation enjoyed.
"Private initiative in the sector will also lead to the recovery of such standard as we had in the past.
"The crucial element of education which is standard, could be enhanced with an initiative like this (Elizade University) which are genuinely based on strategic planning.
"There are some private institution who are out to make money through education. They look at it as another business. You cannot treat education like business. It's not logical and it is anti human educationist policy."
Soyinka noted that education, like the health sector, should be accessible to all regardless of one's social status and commended the efforts of the proprietors of Elizade varsity.
He also commended the students hostel which he described as "humane and a very good architecture concept.
Ade-Ojo noted that very few universities in the country were equipped with infrastructure.
He said, "My intention is to reverse the race to overseas for education. It is surprising to know that we have a lot of Nigerians in Ghana now who pay at least a tuition fee of about $10, 000 per session."
Ade-ojo lamented that Nigerians were paying the money but could not pay the N1m per session we initially charged until we reduced it to N700,000.
"What we should be charging for the type of facilities we have in place is about N2m per session. First we put the fees at N1m per session but when students were not forthcoming, we reduced it to N700m."
