The vice-chancellor of Salem University Lokoja, Prof. Alewo Johnson-Akubo, has called on the Federal Government to allow private universities to benefit from TETfund for the attainment of desired educational development in the country.
The vice-chancellor, who made the call on Thursday in an interview with newsmen in Lokoja, described the call as “very germane and necessary” to turn around the nation’s education system.
Johnson-Akubo said it is bewailing why private universities are not part of the TETfund funding as the public universities, considering the important roles “we are playing” in the education system.
“No doubt, TETfund are ordinarily proceeding from what should be seen as a commonwealth, since we are all producing graduates that will serve the entity of the nation.
“I think it’s high time that such discrimination should stop. This is because nobody will tell any graduate not to work in a particular office because he or she is coming from a private university.
“Therefore, I am calling on the government to see to it that private universities become as many beneficiaries of TETfund as public universities because we are all working towards the same purpose.
“In fact, if you asked me of the Universities that should benefit from TETfund, I will tell you it’s the private universities in terms of ranking.
“This is because funding private universities are like extracting water from flint rocks. I have a privilege to head a private university and I understand the dynamics of finances, ” he said.
The VC noted that public universities had budgetary allocations, TETfund, other grants and all sorts of subventions yet, the private universities, which don’t have anything at all, are denied access to TETfund.
According to him, there is no reason the private universities should not be integrated into the scheme of things for the TETfund as soon as possible.
The VC explained that Salem University “is that one institution where you bring to it your wards or children and in four years we return them to you finished products in every ramification and devoid of the strike”.
On the ASUU strike, the VC called on both government and union leadership to try, in the interest of parents and the loitering students, to see how they could shift grounds and come to some level of compromise.
NAN
