ASUU kicks against approval of 20 new varsities

Some stakeholders in University education in Nigeria, on Thursday, warned against the proliferation of universities in the country, following Wednesday’s approval of 20 new private universities by the Federal Executive Council.

In separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria, in Benin, the stakeholders said there was nothing to justify the approval when the existing universities were neither adequately funded nor properly monitored to ensure compliance, with appropriate guidelines.

The Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Benin chapter, Prof. Monday Omoregie, said that he had begun to see the approval of more universities as political patronage, despite warnings, to the relevant authorities, on the inherent danger.

Omoregie said expanding the existing universities would perform the functions the new ones were established to do.

According to him, education remains the vibrant instrument for development, hence the need for the government to do the needful in ensuring that the schools are run the way they are supposed to.

“Education is a social service, but these private universities are established by investors, who believe in profit-making.

“The guideline is that private universities must be run for 15 years before any plan of making profit, but which university can do that?” he asked, saying that within a year of establishment, many proprietors would begin to crave gain.

Speaking in a similar vein, Prof. Monday Igbafen, Chairman of ASUU, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, said that the establishment of more universities, without proper recourse to the challenges facing the existing ones, was what the union had been trying to criticise.

“How do you justify the existence of additional universities, when there is this cry that even the private universities that are running now lack proper monitoring, to see if they comply with the NUC guidelines and what is required to run a university.

“They are all just centres of where they collect people’s money. That is why most of us are getting worried about the education system in the country”, he said. Punch