Strategies for alleviating poor students’ hostels facilities

To alleviate poor students’ hostel facilities in Nigeria, the following measures according to Okebukola (2012) should be fully explored:

1. Private sector participation
2. Provision of land for hostel accommodation
3. Adequate supervision by school authority

• Private sector participation: Adeyemi (2008) stated that students’ accommodation and feeding should be fully privatized. This means that one of the ways of curbing the problem of hostel accommodation is by involving private sector participation in the provision of hostels for students.
• Provision of land for hostel accommodation: Higher institution should provide the land within or outside the campus to private individuals to develop and infrastructure should be extended to the site. Contractual agreement should be entered with the private investors which will depend on the negotiated terms as agreed between the higher institution and the prospective investors. The school authority should put in place strategies to encourage private investors which include a 25 years lease reversion period strategies to allow private investor to recoup invested funds in providing hostel accommodation for students in higher institutions, then after the 25 years, the institution can then own and manage the hostel accommodation for students thereby making accommodation available for students in the institution (Ezenwa, 2007).
• Adequate supervision by school authority: The school authorities will be involved in the supervision of the construction to ensure that stipulated specifications are adhered to. Management and maintenance agreement is to be mutually worked out between the school and the investors. A typical model is for the investor to take responsibility for the management including security of the hostels while the school provides guidelines in respect of rules and regulations that obtain in the school as may affect hostel accommodation. Rent per bed space shall mutually be agreed to by the investor and the school authority. However, adequate considerations should be given to the prevailing economic rent in the locality vis-à-vis the ability of students to pay (Adeyemi, 2008).

References

Adeyemi, P. (2008). Search for an ideal handling-over note in students’ accommodation. New York: Columbia University Press.

Ezenwa, N. (2007). Private-public partnership in the management of student hostels in the Nigerian Universities. An Unpublished M.ED. Project, University of Ibadan.

Okebukola, P. (2012). The state of university education in Ibadan. National Universities Commission.