President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday said that it was not possible to fund education
from the budget and that the Federal Government had plans to raise funds from
the capital market to fund universities.
President Muhammadu Buhari was represented by the
Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, also acknowledged that university
education was under-funded and that the Academic Staff Union of Universities
was right to go on strike, as he urged institutions to leverage alumni and
partnership with the private sector to provide the needed push to the
infrastructure of universities.
Following the declaration, the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, said
that ASUU would resist attempts by the Federal Government to make public
universities commodities to be traded on the stock exchange.
Ogunyemi on Monday, said, “There are two
dimensions to that.
The first dimension is if they intend to borrow money from
the capital market, maybe through bonds, well, that may be fine. But the other
dimension, which is particularly dangerous, is to trade with universities. That
is turning universities to commodities. ASUU will not be a party to that. ASUU
will resist that because it is part of the agenda to commercialise and
privatise public education.
If what the Federal Government is planning to do
is to invite their so-called private investors to public universities, ASUU
will refuse it because education is a public good, our public education should
be funded with public funds. So any attempt to privatise public education in
whatever disguised form, to trade universities on the stock market, ASUU will
resist it. We are not unaware that one or two state governments were already
planning something like that and we are looking into it.”
On the Federal Government’s plan to partner the
private sector to provide the needed funds and infrastructure, Ogunyemi
insisted, “If the private sector wants to increase their participation, they
should do so through their contribution to TETfund, we will see that as a
private sector contribution. But when people talk about the private sector as
if they should buy shares in universities, we don’t agree with that.
Universities are not commodities.
“If the government is saying that they are
finding it difficult to fund public universities, we have proposed a number of
sources, as outlined in the document that we submitted to them. The government
can also set up a joint committee to look at the ways of funding public
universities. If they have the commodities they want to sell there to generate
funds for universities, fine. But it is not by selling universities to those
who want to buy shares.”
However, the Federal Government and ASUU agreed
on the need to leverage alumni of universities to contribute to the growth of
higher institutions, Ogunyemi said, “We are not opposed to the alumni idea. We
also suggested that. We suggested that alumni should come back and help their
alma mater because there are a lot of those that benefited from public
education. They can also give back.”
The ASUU president then urged the government to
make education a priority, stating that it is the best investment and cure to
various societal ills. “The fact has shown that investment in education yields
better return in the long run than investing in stocks. Any government that
ignores public education will not escape its consequences through rising crime
rate, rising poverty, increased manifestation of preventable diseases, squalor
and general underdevelopment.
“See what is happening in the North-East,
South-South, even in the South-West and other parts of the country, we have a
lot of issues on our hands. So, any attempt to privatise public university will
be resisted by ASUU.”
