The Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Prof. Eyitope Ogunmodede, has urged the Federal Government to include the private universities as beneficiaries of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund particularly for training, library development and attendance of conferences and workshops.
Ogunmodede stated that the intervention highly beneficial to the Nigerians students.
The don stated this recently while delivering a foundation anniversary lecture of the Achievers University in Owo, Ondo State, titled ‘University education in Nigeria: Matters arising’.
The VC, who identified poor funding as one of the major challenges facing the university system in Nigeria said the private universities would soon overtake public universities that failed to upgrade.
He said, “The TETFund intervention grants have helped to increase productivity and transform the outlook of our tertiary institutions. However, it would be fair to extend it to the private universities which also had Nigerians students.
“This will give room for better coverage, effectiveness and efficiency. A major challenge, surprisingly, is also the lack of structure and capacity to utilize the available funds. There is also a challenge of poor facilities for teaching, learning and research in our universities.”
The VC also called for regular and credible accreditation of university programmes, saying there was a need for international observers to be among the accreditation teams in order to have a better standard for university programmes.
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