The Academic Staff Union Of Universities and Academic Staff Union Of Polytechnics and Colleges of Education Staff Union have vehemently opposed the move by the Federal Government of Nigeria to approve the opening of more universities/polytechnics and colleges of education in the country when existing ones have not been well funded.
This is coming against the backdrop that about sixty-three bills being tabled before the National Assembly for the creation of new institutions of higher learning.
Currently, Nigeria has a total of forty-nine federal universities, fifty-nine state universities and one hundred and eleven private universities according to the data from the National University Commission, NUC.
Also the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, puts the numbers of existing federal polytecnics in the country at forty, state owned polytechnics at fifty-nine and private owned ones at seventy.
Colleges of Health in the country is reportedly put at seventy for both federal and state, while private is seventeen with Colleges of Education is put at two hundred and nineteen.
Most members of the various academic associations have roundly condemned the move describing it as designed by the political class to score a cheap political goal.
They claim that what is needed at the moment is sanitizing the education system by providing adequate funding and much needed facilities for the efficient and effective running of the existing institutions.
The general secretary of the Colleges of Education Staff Union, COESU, Dr. Ahmed Bazza, said that institutions are facing real problem of brain drain, which has led to paucity or dearth of lecturers in the tertiary institutions.
According to Gazza, “we are trying to cope with poor funding and total lack of facilities in addition to the massive exodus of lecturers leaving the shores of this country for greener pastures and then this.” He added that what government is trying to do is completely unfair to the system and would have dire consequencies on the quality of education in the land.
He advised that rather than set up new educational institutions, government should brainstorm on how best they can make existing ones more beneficial to the people.
It will be recalled that in March of 2021, the National Assembly had proposed approving more tertiary institutions of higher learning. Some of the proposed institutions included then specialized institutions like school of Fisheries, Sports, Information Technology and host of others