Students Enrollment and The Needed Support Services for Teaching/learning: A Case for Teaching of General Studies (GST) in University of Jos

There are clear indications that students enrollment figures into tertiary institutions particularly universities across Nigeria has increased in recent years. This can be attributed to the demand for tertiary education by many people among others. There are also some government policies at both state and federal levels that contributed to this development. For instance, some states have introduced the policy of free education; some went further to introduce compulsory education at primary and junior secondary school levels. In addition to the above is the high population of Nigeria which has an estimated annual growth rate population rate of 3.2%). In view of these strong indications and other related factors, the demand for tertiary education and the available resources (human, facilities and fund) on ground to support students teaching and learning do not seem to match. This paper briefly looked at students' enrollment in universities and the different types of students support services, using university of Jos as a reference point. The study considered the type of students support services that will match the demand  and expectations of both current and future students. The study showed that the students' enrollment in the university of Jos has increased from 4,300 in 2008 to 7,500 in 2016; enrollment across Nigeria was 1,417,080 in 2010; this figure is expected to reach 5,732,878 by 2020. Whereas the number of enrollment figures continue to rise over the years, the corresponding ideal students support services in the university are not good enough for effective learning and teaching of GST courses. The study suggested that teaching and learning should be more relevant to stakeholders' needs, which in this case, students and lecturers. Apart from modern teaching aids, a creation of a dedicated GST Resource Centre (Portal) as support service to students, will provide easy access to GST lecture series online and always; improve participation of students in an environment that lacks adequate infrastructure like classrooms and promote learning at home among students, especially now that every student has access to devices that can access the internet.