The Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities has stated that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund must continue to fund infrastructural development in the universities to address the needs of the huge number of students admitted into the schools.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, the Chairman of CVCNU, Prof Edoumiekumo Samuel, said, “Let me tell you, even from this moment Cambridge is still building, Cambridge that was established in 1209; they are still building because the infrastructural deficit is a function of the number of student intakes.
“If the number of students admitted to universities is increasing, you must also increase the manpower and the infrastructure. Before now, you have 15 or 20 students in a class. Today, you are talking of hundreds. So, the issue of infrastructural development is a continuous thing.”
Recall that the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Sonny Echono, said in January that the trust fund had delivered 162 projects in 28 states of the federation, and across 54 beneficiary institutions.
He stressed that the trust fund spread its projects across the six geo-political zones in the country.
When asked whether students would be given a break from academic activities to go home, collect their Permanent Voter Cards, and vote at the forthcoming polls, he said only individual university senates, and Governing Councils could decide to close its gates and allow students collect their PVCs in the forthcoming elections.
It was earlier reported that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, had on February 1, 2023, urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to ensure that students collected their PVCs.
Speaking on the issue, the CVCNU chairman stressed that neither the National Assembly nor the CVCNU was empowered to inform the tertiary institutions to close the universities across the country.
He said, “This is not the first time election is taking place; they are not the ones to inform universities. The universities have their respective Governing Councils and their senates; so, individual universities will look at the scenarios within their universities and take appropriate decisions.”
Speaking for the Nigeria Delta University, Bayelsa, he said, “We have our timetable already, we are starting exams, and we have also considered elections and have made provisions for that period.
“So, we will not even resume until after the elections. We are taking care of that already. In the same vein, I know respective VCs and their senates must have considered all those things.”
