VP/ASUU MEETING "On Funding The Vice-President said the directive given to Suswam Committee was to implement the recommendations of the Needs Assessment Report in line with the prioritized needs of each university. He also said that the N100 billion released was drawn from various funding agencies, and not from TETFund. He claimed that, with the recent inauguration of the TETFund Board, the 2013 allocation of the regular grants to universities would soon be done. He admonished that there must be a framework for intervention in the various universities; each university must have its own plan and only such a plan must guide project implementation. He said that government was not in a position to go beyond N100 billion this year. However, Government would be able to raise the amount to N150 billion by 2014 as a demonstration of its willingness to reverse the parlous state of Nigerian public universities. He said government would be able to free a lot of funds through its current Public Private Partnership (PPP) policies. He acknowledged the level of decay of facilities in Nigerian universities through reference to the low standing of their certificates overseas, unlike what obtained in the 1960s and 1970s. When asked on why the Nigerian government was not willing to bail out the universities as it did recently with the banks, which were privately owned, he replied that what was given to the banks was not free money and they were already beginning to repay."
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 20:32:03 +0000