Ibadan - Education

Education

The first university to be set up in Nigeria was the University of Ibadan. Established as a college of the University of London in 1948, and later converted into an autonomous university in 1962. It has the distinction of being one of the premier educational institutions in Africa. The Polytechnic, Ibadan is also located in the city. As at October, 2006, the university has a population of 13,823 undergraduate and 3,480 postgraduate students.

There are also numerous public and private primary and secondary schools located in the city. Other noteworthy institutions in the city include the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital, also known as University College Hospital (UCH), which is the first teaching hospital in Nigeria; the internationally acclaimed International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA); the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER). Also the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, the Nigerian Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), and the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T), all under the auspices of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria; and the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria.

Before the dissolution of the Western Region, Nigeria, Ibadan and its environs were the home of the most sophisticated and liberal scientific and cultural community on the continent of Africa, as personified by the immortalized Ibadan School of historiography.

In 1853, the first Europeans to settle in Ibadan, Reverend Hinderer and his wife, started Ibadan's first Western schools. They built churches and schools and the first two-storey building in Ibadan, which can still be found today at Kudeti. The first pupils to attend an elementary school in Ibadan were Yejide (female) and Akinyele (male) – the two children of an Ibadan high chief.