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Nigeria’s
university system will continue to grapple with inadequate funding
until the sector is opened up for more participation of stakeholders
who will provide adequate funding, says Julius Okojie, Executive
Secretary of the Nigeria Universities Commission.

He spoke to
journalists at end of the opening ceremony of the International
Conference on 50 Years of University Education in Nigeria and
presentation of a book on 50 Years of University Education in Nigeria,
held in Abuja.

“As long as we
think that it is government’s full responsibility to provide funding,
we are going to have problems,” he said. “There is what is called cost
sharing in many parts of the world. We are not going to make progress
without this. We are not saying that those who are poor cannot go to
school but we will make provision for scholarship bursaries and loans.
University should be for the best.”

He said local and
state governments should identify best brains in the area and sponsor
them to universities. “Under no situation should a child who deserves
to have university education not have. Everybody should bear the cost,”
he said.

Deregulation of education

Kenneth Gbagi,
Minister of State for Education who had at a recent event muted the
idea of deregulation of education in Nigeria, urged Nigerian
universities, Vice-Chancellors to proffer practicable ways of funding
education, especially university education in the country, saying that
the running of university education cannot be left to the government
alone.

He said that until
the Vice-Chancellors show more commitment of ‘ownership’ of the
universities, university education system will remain the way it is. He
wondered why there are not many foreign students studying in the
Nigerian Universities today as in the 70s and early 80s.

The minister said
it is regrettable that today, many well-to-do Nigerians send their
children abroad for university education, owing to instability of the
university calendar in our country.

He said there is an
urgent need for the professors in the university system to make
themselves stakeholders in the educational system in our country. “They
must be part and parcel of universities, that way the issues of strike,
salary increase will be a thing of the past, as it is elsewhere in the
world,” he said.

The conference, put together by the National Universities Commission
(NUC) and Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities
(AVCNU), is aimed at examining the concept of ‘World Class
Universities’ and outlining appropriate strategies for positioning
Nigerian universities on the path to World Class status.