Education Minister urges National Assembly to halt new university bills

The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has called on the National Assembly to halt the passing of bills for the establishment of new universities.

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Speaking at the ministerial briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Mr Alausa bemoaned the proliferation of universities while the existing institutions struggle with funding challenges.

“I want to use this opportunity to talk to our legislators, members of the National Assembly, please we need to stop this flood gate; they are passing a lot of bills” he said.

“Today, I can tell you that there are almost 200 bills in the national assembly for new universities to open. We can’t continue like this. Even the ones we have, we don’t have enough infrastructure there. The capacity for our universities to admit is not there. What we need to do now is to rebuild the capacity so that we can offer more viable courses to our citizens.”

The minister said the government is becoming over burdened with funding of the new universities being introduced.

He, therefore, advocated for the standardisation of existing universities rather than establishing new ones.
“What we now need to do is to now begin to mobilise more resources to develop infrastructures; more engineering workshops, build laboratories, recruit international standards teachers so that we can begin to get these universities to develop to deliver high quality education that we’ve been known for as a country,” he added.

Mr Alausa explained that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) grants to universities also reduces per institution as more universities are established “and that’s why we have to stop this deluge of just opening universities.”

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He said President Bola Tinubu has approved a tentative plan and that his ministry is working on a document to address the proliferation of universities.

“We have a clear plan. The president has given tentative approval. We are working on a document to address that,” he said.

Proliferation amid funding challenges

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr Tinubu’s administration established 12 tertiary institutions including eight universities in less than two years despite funding challenges crippling existing ones.

In the early days of his administration, Mr Tinubu-led federal government postponed the take-off of some federal universities approved by former President Muhammadu Buhari, over funding concerns.

However, his government has gone ahead to establish more universities, polytechnics and colleges of education without providing an alternative source of funding.

Nigeria currently has 64 federal universities, 67 state universities and 148 private universities.

The government recently placed a temporary ban on the establishment of new private universities, citing the need for a comprehensive review of regulatory guidelines.