The newly appointed minister of state for education, Kenneth Gbagi, has called for the deregulation of the university sector so that schools can single-handedly raise funds for their projects.

Mr. Gbagi made this call on Monday in Abuja when the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Julius Okojie, paid him a visit. He said that the move was necessary because government’s resources are inadequate to cover the high cost needed to run Nigerian universities every year.

Meaningful education

“We must as a country start, the same way we deregulated the petroleum sector, to deregulate the university sector,” said Mr. Gbagi. “I will support anything in that direction because the burden of government in the education sector is one that is extremely very heavy.”

Though he admitted it would mean an increase in tuition fees, he said that many Nigerian families were already paying large amounts to send their children abroad.

“It will interest you to know that a great proportion of our resources today is paid to African countries. In Ghana, our students pay close to $5,000 and $7,000 to gain university education,” he said. “If we take all these children to Ghana, America, and England and pay fees, we should be ready to pay minimum fees for our students in Nigeria. If you must go to school, you must be able to pay a price.”

He, therefore, urged the commission’s executive secretary to work out a ten-year plan on how to gradually reduce the government’s involvement in running the university system.

Illegal degrees

The new minister also talked about the growing number of illegal degree-awarding institutions in the country. He charged the NUC to be more proactive in tackling the menace. Mr. Gbagi said the 60 days of grace currently given to such institutions is out of place and ordered the immediate closure of illegal universities when identified.

“As NUC publishes the list of genuine higher institutions, it should also set up a monitoring team to discover and get reports of such institutions. Government will do everything within its power to ensure that these illegal institutions are dealt with very quickly,” he said.

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