The Vice-Chancellor, Babcock University, Ogun State, Prof. Ademola Tayo, has advised both private and government-owned institutions to seek innovative means of generating funds.
Speaking at the 43rd inaugural lecture of the university titled, ‘Financing higher education in Nigeria: A call for critical review and sustainable funding engagement,’ delivered by Prof. Luke Onuoha, Tayo said, “Gone are the days where we need to put on our caps and go up begging the government. Every institution should put on its thinking cap and find a way of generating funds that will be able to sustain the University. We are talking about Entrepreneur University, we are talking about consultancy, and all very good ways in which we can draw funds. We can launch to the alumni, and the parents, and consolidate from them.
“There are many things we can engage in to have some funds that will be able to augment whatever may be coming from TETfund and for those that are not getting from that fund, at least, be able to have some fund which will be able to keep the investment going because without thorough funding there can not be a very good standard of education.
“The laboratory must be fully equipped, the library must be fully stocked, and all that need money. Therefore, what I’m advocating for is for us to think out of the box and have sufficient funds apart from tuition and government funding so as to be able to keep our universities running.”
Onuoha in his lecture stated that TETfund’s denial of support to private universities, either as institutions or by the exclusion of the professors and students in private universities from direct funding support in their research efforts, was tantamount to inequity.
He said, “I wish to reiterate that higher education funding in Nigeria, across the various categories of ownership Federal, State and private- going by research, personal experience and critical observation of other stakeholders, is anything but inadequate. The long days of ASUU strike, the poorly equipped laboratories and libraries of the institutions across the country, and the near to total relegation of quality research, all of which arise from inadequate funding of the education sector, leave clear evidence that our universities are still far from the expected proud height of excellence. No amount of flogging the horse in the popular media, nor by the throaty commentaries of employers of labour who decry the shallow content of the products of the Nigerian universities, will retrieve the falling standards (of higher education in the country) except the government takes a decisive stand on the matter of financing and autonomy of the universities.”
