FG Approved Disbursement of N220bn to Universities: Shekarau

FG Approved Disbursement of N220bn to Universities: Shekarau

The Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, has disclosed this on Monday that President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the disbursement of N220 billion to the all federal universities in other to solve the problems in the education sector.

Shekarau also stated that the federal government had set up a committee that went round the universities to assess the challenges they are facing, noted that the committee submitted a report on its findings.

“The report submitted was that education sector needs N1.3 trillion to surpass its challenges, but with his serious concern to education, Mr. president approved the disbursement of N220 billion to the federal universities for the next five years”.
The education minister told journalists in Kano at the weekend that industrial crisis confronting tertiary institutions have been subdued, adding that the disruption of academic calendar is now a thing of the past.

“On assuming office, we started engaging ourselves, my office and stakeholders like Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), we agreed there are problems, and these problems are carryover problems, we all agreed there are problems, but let us set down to see how we can solve them”.

Shekarau stated, “We can keep boxing ourselves in a corner over the challenges, but let teaching continue, let teaching and learning, if we stop teaching for one minute, we are failing, all us have then failed, because we are one and same thing, we are all losers. If it continued that way, we are making progress”.

He further said this year alone, each of all the federal universities benefited N910 million, while federal polytechnics got N650 million each, federal colleges of education got N550 million each. He pointed out that the money was at the jurisdiction of the tertiary institutions to determine how they would be spent, saying these monies are outside their TETFUND allocation.

Shekarau lamented that majority of the universities are yet to come forward to assess these funds, pointing out that they are yet to commence all relevant processes, vital for assessment of the funds.

The education minister revealed that, the ministry under his leadership has established a committee within the ministry that embarks on the inspection tour of all federal tertiary institutions to monitor their progress.

Source: This Day Live