Impact of Insecurity on Quality of Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria: A Case study of Plateau State Tertiary Institutions

Plateau State, Nigeria has continued to witness protracted violent conflicts in the past three decades that have adversely affected various sectors of the state, including the educational sector. The paper investigates impact of insecurity on quality of tertiary education in Nigeria: A Case study of Plateau State Tertiary institutions. It adopted the Democratic Peace Theory as the theoretical framework to guide the paper. It utilised both secondary and primary data, using qualitative approach. The primary data administered 12 In-depth and 4 Key Informant Interviews using purposive sampling techniques. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. The paper found out that insecurity in the study area gave way to loss of manpower in educational institutions, poor quality of education, destruction of infrastructural facilities, closure of educational institutions, internal displacement of staff and students, reduction of private investment in education. It further submitted that currents efforts to mitigate the problems have not yielded enough positive results. The paper, therefore, recommended that the government both at the federal and the state levels should address all the pending issues fuelling insecurities in the state and ensure that the institution is secured and safe enough for teaching and learning. The governments should invest in higher institutions' securities across the state. Since the military approach seems failing, the paper further recommended the adoption of non-kinetic approaches to support the current efforts deployed to combat the menace of insecurity in the University of Jos. Finally, the paper emphasised that the University should intensify awareness programmes for the university community to always observe basic security measures as early warning tactics to mitigate unforeseen attacks; and that the university should invest in Online Distance Learning (ODL) systems to allow the students access virtual teaching experience as alternative learning process. Keywords: Impact, Insecurity, Tertiary institution.