Nigerian universities operating obsolete systems — Minister

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa has lamented the state of the Nigerian university system, stating that the operational system of most Nigerian universities and other higher institutions are obsolete and require urgent change.

He stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, at the inauguration of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee for the TETFUND High Impact Intervention Project, for the rehabilitation of medical schools across our great nation.

He specifically lamented the level of backwardness of institutions like the Universities of Lagos (UNILAG), Ibadan, and several other first-generation universities that have less than 30,000 students.

“Tell me why some of these universities shouldn’t have about 100, 000 students when they can leverage technology that’s redefining life and living. The world has changed significantly, and we need to know that. We can’t continue to do what we did some 50 years ago or operate our universities the way we did 50 years ago and expect to achieve results. We need to go beyond learning within the four walls of the classroom and tap into digital resources.

“Sadly, we have some first-generation universities that have less than 30,000 students when they should be talking about 100,000 and above. We need to provide access to our citizens to acquire education.”

He thus asked the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) to be worried about the development and urgently do something about it.

“This is one of reasons we inaugurated this committee, the Ministerial Monitoring Committee for the TETFUND High Impact Intervention Project for the rehabilitation of medical schools across our great nation, and we expect some realistic solutions to some of the challenges from them,” the Minister said.

He assured that the Federal Ministry of Education will provide the necessary support(s) required to ensure that the expected transformations in the education sector particularly in the Science, Technical, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is achieved.