The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, on Thursday, disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are under pressure to establish new universities in various locations across the country, mostly for political reasons.
Alausa, speaking at the ministerial press briefing in Abuja, said the pressure is primarily from members of the National Assembly, stating that about 200 bills seeking the establishment of new universities are currently before the National Assembly.
The minister said: ‘Our legislators need to stop the floodgate. There’s so much pressure on the President. We have to, at least, be sensitive to him as well. They’re passing a lot of bills. Today, I can tell you there are almost 200 bills in the National Assembly for the establishment of new universities to open. We can’t continue this.
‘Even the ones we have, we don’t have enough infrastructure there. The capacity for a university to admit isn’t there. What we need to do now is to rebuild the capacities to ensure that we can offer more viable courses to our citizens.
“Today, if you care to know, we have about 64 federal universities, 68 state universities, and 138 private universities. If you put the entire enrolment together, the 138 private universities account for just about 7.5 per cent of total undergraduate enrolment. Even in our 64 federal universities, the total number of undergraduate enrolment today is just about 875,000, which is abysmally low”
He dispelled fears that the new tax regime might affect the funding of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), an intervention agency established to improve infrastructure and other facilities in public tertiary institutions.
He said: ‘You must have heard some information with the new tax bill about the funding of TETFund, which indicated that funding of the agency, alongside NITDA and NASENI, might end by 2030.
