By Musa Baba Adamu
Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu, yesterday, sought for the review of the act establishing the commission.
This he said was to enable the NUC perform its duties efficiently.
He made the call while defending the commission’s 2025 budget before the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TetFund chaired by Sen. Muntari Dandutse.
“We need to review the act to enable the commission to perform its duties efficiently. We’ll see you on this one, because we already have a draft actually.
“The landscape has changed. Meanwhile, the law, the Act of 2004 remains. So for us to be able to perform our functions efficiently, we really need to look at this, at the NUC Act,” he said.
He listed the commission’s and universities’ challenges to include inadequate funding.
“In spite of the consistent financial support from the federal government to public universities over the years, through budgetary allocation and other interventions…
“Inadequate funding appears to be an insurmountable challenge to the delivery of quality education in Nigeria.
“Inadequate infrastructure, thanks to TetFund for its intervention. Poor facilities for teaching and learning and research, inadequate access, still a big problem in spite of the improvement in access over the years by the licensing of additional universities”.
Also speaking, Vice-Chancellor Bayero University Kano (BUK), Prof. Sagir Abbas said that universities were faced with issues of salary payment.
“We have issues to do with overhead, which includes electricity. Now, if you look at what is given as overhead, it doesn’t cover 2 per cent of what really overhead means”.
He decried that research by universities was never captured in the national budget. saying that “We are left on our own to find means and ways to run the university, to teach, and also to do research.
“I feel this is a very big gap. Any country that wants to develop must focus its attention on the university.
“This is because that is where knowledge is created and that is where we produce the manpower that comes and serves nationally for the national development of the country”.
Earlier, Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Muntari Dandutse said that as “We deliberate on the proposed 2025 budget, it is vital that the NUC demonstrates a clear and sustainable strategy for integrating internally generated revenue into its overall financial plan.
“With rising demands on public resources, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is a crucial mechanism for achieving long-term sustainability and enhancing the competitiveness of our universities
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