Achieving Equality of Educational Opportunity on Access to University Education in Nigeria : A Case of Policy Implementation

The issue of policy implementation specifically on equality of education opportunities on access to university education was seriously neglected in Nigerian higher education research. Hence this study was motivated and intended to investigate the policy implementation on equality of educational opportunities on access to university education in Nigeria. This case study using Usman Danfodio University Sokoto as the context of study investigated the issue regarding to the policy on access to university. Qualitative approach using in-depth interview and documents analysis has been employed to obtain a greater avenue of understanding the issue of equality of opportunity on access to university. From the study, it is evident that the policy content and intentions were clear but they were hampered by weak implementation. This study also indicate that as populous country like Nigeria, while 1,375,653 applied for admission to university, less than 36% or 500,000 are accommodated, which indicate that achieving equal access to university education is a great challenge.