Okorocha gets NUC nod for 3 new state varsities

THE National Universities Commission on Tuesday issued letters of recognition to the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha for the establishment of three more State Universities.

Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed presented the letters to the Governor who was accompanied by some top officials of the state to the Commission in Abuja.

The new universities are: University of Creative Technology; University of Medical Sciences and University of Science and Technology.

This has brought the number of Imo State owned universities to five (5) and as such emerged as the only State with ownership of five universities in Nigeria according NUC record.

Rasheed said education being on the concurrent list, the Commission had to recognise the institutions after the laws establishing them by the State Assembly were presented to NUC alongside Academic Brief and Physical Master Plan.

He commended the Governor for given education priority attention, saying there was a lot of creativity in the establishment of the specialist universities.

He, however, noted the courses proposed to run by the universities were new and that the Commission and the State would have to sit to develop the programme before admissions are offered to prospective students.

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Okorocha, in his remark said there is enough fund to run education in Nigeria if the sector is given consideration and priority attention.

He said Imo State has been in dire need of more universities, because of large number candidates who apply for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination annually and are frustrated at the end of the day, as a result of inadequate carrying capacity of the existing universities in Nigeria.

He said major infrastructure work had been on in all the sites of the universities several months ago.