NUC

By Muhammad Sabiu

The National Universities Commission, on behalf of the Federal Government, today rescinded the circular that earlier instructed vice-chancellors, pro chancellors, and governing councils to reopen federal universities.

Recall that it was early on reported that all vice-chancellors, pro chancellors, and chairmen of governing councils of federal universities received a circular with the subject line NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135, directing them to reopen their institutions.

However, the commission reverses the directive few hours later, in a subsequent circular with the reference number NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/136, which was also signed by Sam Onazi, the NUC’s director of finance and accounts.

Without categorically stating the reason behind the U-turn, the letter tagged, “withdrawal of circular NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135 dated September 23, 2022” noted, “I have been directed to withdraw the NUC Circular Ref: NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135, and dated September 23, 2022, on the above subject.

“Consequently, the said circular stands withdrawn. All pro-chancellors and chairmen of governing councils, as well as vice-chancellors of federal universities, are to please note. Further development and information would be communicated to all relevant stakeholders.

“Please accept the assurances of the Executive Secretary’s warmest regards”

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Federal Government Monday has ordered the universities’ vice-chencellors to re-open schools to allow students to resume lectures.

The FG gave the order through the National Universities Commission (NUC) on Monday, September 26, 2022.

The directive was contained in a letter singed by the Director, Finance and Accounts of the NUC, Sam Onazi, on behalf of the Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Abubakar Rasheed.

NUC instructed that all vice-chancellors; Pro-Chancellors and chairmen of governing councils of federal universities should re-open schools.

The instruction reads: “Ensure that ASUU members immediately resume/commence lectures; Restore the daily activities and routines of the various University campuses.’’

It could be recalled that, with the deadlock in negotiation between the FG and ASUU members, the federal government went to court to challenge the action of the association.

In its latest session on the case, the National Industrial Court, through Polycarp Humman, the presiding judge, granted the federal government’s application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain ASUU from continuing with the strike.

Recall that ASUU has been on a strike since February 14, 2022. The university lecturers have down tools to press their demands home on issues that boarder on improved work environment, facilities, and upholding of various agreement entered between the union and federal government.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked Nigerians to hold the Ministry of Communication and Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) responsible for the lingering impasse between ASUU and the Federal Government.

ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Buchi Zone, Professor Lawan Abubakar, briefed reporters on Monday, March 4, 2022, in Jos, where he alleged NITDA is misleading Nigerians on the credibility and acceptability of UTAS which he said has passed the integrity test. 

“Ironically, NITDA, in conjunction with its parent Ministry (The Ministry of Communications where Pantami is minister), is seriously sabotaging the government at resolving the impasse. This is obviously capable of prolonging the current strike, thereby bringing untold hardship on Nigerian University students and the University System.” Prof. Abubakar stated

He further explained that NITDA, who scored UTAS high in the past, can not suddenly say UTAS failed integrity test. 

“After scoring UTAS this high, NITDA went further to contradict itself by making a fallacious statement that UTAS has failed integrity tests. The union wonders how a score of 97.4% will amount to failure.

“The Union still agreed to another Test by NITDA on March 8, 2022, in the presence of observers front the Federal Ministry of Education/National Universities Commission (NUC), Federal Ministry of Finance/OAGF, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission.

“This most recent test still scored UTAS 99.3% in all the Tests metrics. ASUU is Therefore surprised that NITDA, having scored UTAS this high on two different occasions, unpatriotically went to the press to deliberately mislead the public into believing that UTAS has failed Integrity tests again.” Prof Abubakar clearly explained.

Therefore, he called on Nigerians and the Federal Government to call the Ministry of Communications and NITDA to order to resolve the labour crisis.

By Abdelghaffar Abdelmalik Amoka

There was this piece of trending news over the last week on a certain ranking from the National University Commission (NUC) where the University of Ibadan was the best, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University came last. The ranking received a lot of reactions. While there were jubilations from the graduates and students of the relatively younger universities (TETFund Universities as they are popularly called) as they were highly rated on the ranking, the students of some old universities (allegedly living on past glory) were not pleased with the ranking, especially those that were ranked very low despite their gigantic structures. On the other hand, some new universities without research infrastructures were reported to have high per capital google scholar index. Not sure how that was achieved, though.

While the argument was going on among the students about the ranking, ASUU members were having meetings across the universities on another looming strike. The ASUU NEC was reported to be in a meeting this weekend to decide on the looming 2021 strike. While we are awaiting the outcome of the meeting, the students seem to be more concerned with the ranking than the state of the universities and the ASUU strike.

I have been trying to imagine the merits and demerits of the NUC ranking but still trying to figure out one. All the public universities are in terrible shape. Is the ranking based on the best among the chronic underfunded public universities? The 2013 NEEDS Assessment committee of the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, chaired by Prof Mahmood Yakubu, the then TETFund Boss and currently the INEC Boss, revealed the terrible state of public universities and their lecture halls/rooms, and students’ hostels. Some of the hostels occupied by the students were reported not fit for humans.

Has all that changed in 2021? What are we ranking? FG is still dragging the revitalisation of public universities and releasing crumbs to the universities whenever ASUU barks. What are we ranking? Research is not adequately funded in public universities, younger universities have no research structure, and most of us are publishing papers just for promotion’s sake. What are we ranking? We can’t address several challenges from the university, a supposed hub for solution development. We can’t even develop solutions to solve our own challenges within the university. So, what are we ranking?

Who is NUC ranking the universities for? The government, with their deep poverty of sincerity on education, political class so that they can start patronising the universities rather than taking their kids abroad? The parents/students who care not about the quality but certificate, the few committed lecturers or the meal “ticketers”, or the International communities? If we have a structure to rank, there won’t be anxiety over another ASUU strike just a year after the suspension of a nine months strike.

Rather than expending resources on a ranking that changes nothing, the commission should have rather diverted the resources towards putting up a structure that will make the universities rank-able. We must develop strategies to fight both external and internal aggression.

The owners terribly underfund the Universities (Federal and state governments), and the academics are dreadfully paid with an Assistant Lecturer earning a net salary of about N115,000 per month and a Professor on the last step earning a net salary of N416,000. The quest for proper funding and better welfare has resulted in uncountable strike actions. However, I still maintain that if we define our priorities well, there is the fund to provide quality education for Nigerians.

Meanwhile, we also have internal issues to sort to improve the system. For example, we have Civil Engineering, Building, and Architecture departments in the universities where we train Civil Engineers, Builders, and Architects. Yet, we have awfully built new buildings and poorly maintained old buildings. We are training leaders in the universities but have terrible leaders in the universities who behave more like local politicians. We are training business and financial experts, but we can’t help the universities manage their resources and can’t help the universities to make money from the resources within the universities. We are training researchers to develop solutions for the world, but we can’t develop solutions for our challenges within the universities.

While the universities need proper funding, we have a lot to do internally to make the university work. Else, no matter how much money is injected into public universities, without responsible leadership to properly utilise the available resources for optimum impact, without academics (not meal ticketers) that are prepared to make things work and will objectively perform NUC accreditation, the funds will never produce the desired result.

Let’s do the cleanup, and everyone will be eager to see the ranking of our universities. You will see healthy competition where universities and departments compete to outperform each other.

Abdelghaffar Amoka Abdelmalik writes from Zaria and can be reached through aaabdelmalik@gmail.com.

By Ibrahiym A. El-Caleel

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has scored Ahmadu Bello University Distance Learning Center as the best in Nigeria.

NUC conducted a Quality Assurance Assessment Visit to Nigerian university distance learning centres. Eight among the centres were rated “Very Viable” with a percentage score of at least 80%, as follows:

Ahmadu Bello University Distance Learning Center- 94.9%

University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute- 93.1%

University of Ibadan Distance Learning Center- 93.0%

Joseph Ayo Babalola University Center for Distance Learning- 92.7%

Lagos State University Open and Distance Learning and Research Institute- 89%

Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Open and Distance Learning Center- 88.7%

University of Nigeria Nsukka Center for Distance and e-Learning- 85%

Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola Center for Distance Learning- 83.5%

University of Maiduguri and Obafemi Awolowo University were both rated “Viable”, scoring 78.1% and 75.3%, respectively.

University of Abuja Center for Distance Learning and Continuing Education was rated “Not Viable”, with a score of 50.3%.

There are only 12 approved distance learning centres across the country, as obtained by The Daily Reality from the NUC website. The 12th accredited program is the Federal University of Technology Minna Center for Open Distance and e-Learning.

Nigerian universities established distance learning centres to obtain degrees from NUC-approved universities without a physical presence on campus. Due to flexibility, the programmes are gaining more acceptability over the years by students who might be inconvenient to be in physical contact with the schools.