We are ready to reopen – Private varsities

Maryam Abeeb, Abuja

The Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Registrars of Private Universities, Prof. Timothy Olagbemiro, has said private universities are ready to resume.
According to him, private universities had big campuses with small population which would give room for social distancing.
He maintained that resumption would be done in phases, adding that university laboratories also needed to be opened for researches to take place.
Once we are given the green light, we will put everything needed in place. We have big campuses with small population. We don’t want to resume fully, we want to do it in phases whereby the year one and graduating students can resume to take their final exams after which the year two and three will follow suit.
“We need the universities to open their laboratories so we can do researches in them. You can’t close universities and say you want to do research.”
He said it was necessary to take cognizance of COVID-19 while he noted that everyone needed to learn to live with it.
“It is important that we are careful because of COVID-19; of course, it will stay with us for a long time but we have to provide screening, face mask, sanitisers, temperature checker and the likes for our staff and students,” Olagbemiro said.
He also appealed to NUC to consider their request to reopen schools.
“We have written to NUC, they should look in to our request and see if it is visible for us to open our universities. We are also job providers and we need to pay salaries,” Olagbemiro said.