ASUU, CONUA warn govt against new varsities,but adequately fund existing ones

Instead of setting up new universities, the government should focus on funding the existing ones properly, lecturers from the nation’s public universities have suggested.

They said the current universities were starving for funds and lacked enough lecturers and other staff to run them effectively.

They made this suggestion in response to the move by the National Assembly to pass laws to establish 35 new universities.

They expressed their views through the leaders of their respective trade unions, such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU and the Congress of University Academics (CONUA.

The National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, argued that universities should not be used as constituency projects by lawmakers.

Similarly, the National President of CONUA, Dr. Niyi Sunmonu, said while more opportunities should be created for admission seekers, setting up new universities without means to fund and staff them would only worsen the situation.

“Our position has always been that existing problems of poor funding, inadequate facilities, and poor staffing, among others, should be addressed urgently.

“However, we are astonished that instead of doing that, our lawmakers and politicians want to turn setting up universities into a kind of constituency project.

“Now, every set of lawmakers in the National Assembly wants to have new universities established in their constituencies. Nigerians should ask them if they have confidence and trust in these universities and whether they can send their children there.

“It is like they don’t know how universities are set up, run, or what the universities are for. If we are struggling with universities that are poorly funded, with outdated facilities, and where lecturers and other staff leave in droves, how are we going to cope with new additions?” Osodeke said.

On his part, Sunmonu said public universities in the country were currently malnourished, as poor funding was making them slowly collapse.

He said, “Without sounding contradictory, I would say we need more universities as the number of admission seekers left out annually is too high.

“There are two ways to approach the issue: we can set up new ones or expand the capacities of existing ones. But it will be a great disaster if we set up new ones and continue with the trend of poor funding at our universities. It will simply compound our woes.

“Even if we are going to expand the capacities of existing universities, we still need to fund the universities properly. If we are to expand the capacities of existing ones, what we need to do is conduct a needs assessment and go around the universities to know what they need and how to expand their capacities.

“Once the needs of the universities are met, they can expand and admit more students. Even the new ones they are proposing, who is going to manage them?

“Before, it was lecturers from public universities that were servicing private ones; now almost all the universities are experiencing inadequate staffing. Lecturers and other staff members are leaving in droves.