Jigawa State governor, Umar Namadi, has asserted that Nigeria is not yet ripe for granting total autonomy to the nation’s universities, saying doing so will deny many people university education because of high cost of tuition fees.
He apoke on Thursday evening when he paid solidarity visit on the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund),Arc. Sonny Echono.
He noted that those advocating for full university autonomy were not aware of the implication of such policy, granting universities financial autonomy would mean introduction of tuition fees for the institutions to be able to pay their lecturers and other workers in the institutions.
He called for continuous government financial interventions in the nation’s universities, noting that universities are currently semi-autonomous and that granting total autonomy to universities would not be right at the moment.
The governor,who explained that he was at TETFund not only to thank the fund for all its interventions in various tertiary institutions in his state but also sought for more support, insisted that current interventions from the government must continue.
Responding to question on his take on autonomy for universities as being canvassed in some quarters, he said: “Well,I think autonomy is good in every sense but the universities are semi-autonomous. If you know what is happening to the universities, you will know that they are semi-autonomous.
“The law has been passed giving them the power to choose their vice chancellors, meaning that they are simi-autonomous. Autonomy is good but the question is which kind of autonomy? Are you looking for administrative autonomy? Are you looking for financial autonomy? They are two different things.
“So, if you are looking for total autonomy,well I think it may not be right enough at this moment, because by the time you say all universities should be autonomous, I’m sure you cannot be able to afford even school fees for your children. So,I think this is not the right time. The interventions that are coming from state governments and from the federal government to universities,I think we need to continue with these.”
He recalled that,”Recently,the universities took a step further by increasing a little bit of their tuition fees and there is a cry all over the country that the school fees are high.”
” Now,what more if we say okay,be autonomous and finance yourself? How do they finance themselves, it’s from the school fees. So,I think it’s not the right time at this time,”he added.
He explained thatt his mission to TETFund was to “thank TETFund for all the interventions that they have given to us in terms of infrastructure and human capital developments.”
“The fund has given us sufficient intervention in the state. More than 60 percent of our infrastructural development in our higher institutions come from TETFund.
“If you take the total intervention in higher institutions in our state, especially the polytechnic and the universities, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that 60 percent of the infrastructural development comes from TETFund.”
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