Open to all, accessible by few: Access barriers to Higher Education (HE) in Nigeria and the role of parental perceptions of HE

尼日利亚的高等教育参与率特别低，为8% （Aluede等人，2012年），而世界高等教育入学率为30% （McCowan， 2014年）。文献中有明确的证据表明，高等教育的出勤率与经济增长、发展和社会转型呈正相关，在发展中国家尤其如此（Oketch etal, 2014）。尽管如此，在尼日利亚等国家，高等教育机会平等的关键挑战仍然存在（McCowan, 2014）。这是尼日利亚和其他撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）国家相当感兴趣的一个领域，但目前所有这些国家的研究证据都很薄弱，不足以指导政策（McCowan， 2014和Oketch等人，2014）。此外，随着尼日利亚和其他撒哈拉以南非洲国家朝着实现普及基础教育的方向努力，在供应已经有限的情况下，对高等教育的需求只可能增加。围绕高等教育机会不平等及其对社会正义和排斥的影响的问题不容忽视，因为教育已被确定为平衡器和社会流动工具包中的关键项目（McMahon, 2009）。父母对教育的看法在获得高等教育方面也起着至关重要的作用。许多政府举措的成败取决于接受者的看法；然而，人们对尼日利亚父母对高等教育的看法知之甚少（Weir, 2011）。本研究将通过探索和检查不同层次的障碍影响高等教育机会的手段，以及父母对教育的看法在高等教育机会中所起的作用，为这一有限的现有工作做出贡献并加以扩展。

The higher education participation rate in Nigeria is particularly low at 8% (Aluede et al., 2012) compared to the world HE enrolment rate of 30% (McCowan, 2014). There is clear evidence in the literature that HE attendance is positively linked to economic growth and development and societal transformation and this is especially the case in developing country contexts (Oketch et al, 2014). Despite this, the key challenge of equality of access to HE in countries like Nigeria persists (McCowan, 2014). This is an area of considerable interest in Nigeria and other Sub Saharan African (SSA) countries, but the current research evidence in all these countries is weak and insufficient for guiding policy (McCowan, 2014 and Oketch et al, 2014). Furthermore, as Nigeria and other SSA countries gear towards the actualisation of universal basic education, demand for HE is only likely to increase in a context of already limited supply.The issues surrounding inequality of access to HE and its implications for social justice and exclusion cannot be ignored, as education has been identified as a leveller and the key item inthe social mobility tool kit (McMahon, 2009). Parental perceptions of education also play a vital role in access to HE. The success or failure of many government initiatives rely on recipients' perceptions; however little is known as to parental perceptions of HE in Nigeria (Weir, 2011). This research will contribute to and extend this limited existing body of work by exploring and examining the means by which barriers at different levels affect access to higher education and the role parental perception of education plays in access to HE.