Allow NUC manage budgets of universities – JAMB tells Nigerian govt

Tamarauemi Ebimini

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has urged the federal government to allow the National Universities Commission, NUC, to manage the budgets of tertiary institutions in addition to its role as the regulator that accredits courses in schools.

The Registrar of the board, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, who is also a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, made this call on the Sunday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.

Oloyede said university education is so sensitive, and the government should allow experts to administer these tertiary institutions.

The JAMB Registrar faulted a situation where each public university now approaches the National Assembly to defend their budget and get whatever they want based on the people they know and the influence they wield.

“We can still re-engineer the situation to have the things we need. We need to look at the funding mechanism. The National Universities Commission, NUC, for example, should be left alone to run the universities. Hold the National Universities Commission responsible for the management of the universities.

“I was chairman of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and I was involved in the reorganizing and retooling of the National Universities Commission. When the NUC was in charge, things were done well. I believe very strongly that the autonomy that we are talking about for our universities can be better achieved if we allow the NUC to coordinate the affairs.

“Now, every university goes to the National Assembly for their budget, for their defense, and the more you can pull the weight, the more it will determine.”

According to him, when the NUC managed the budget of universities, there was the Universities Annual Review System, which looked at how many candidates universities had across disciplines and used that to determine the next year’s budget.

“Whether you know anybody or you don’t does not come in. The NUC will determine the parameter number of students and so on. And it is the NUC that will defend at the National Assembly and the Ministry of Education,” he said.

Oloyede said when the NUC was in charge, the money going into capital development was high, but now, it has fallen because universities now have too many support staff.

He expected a situation where public universities would get funds based on the number of students they admit.

The former vice chancellor also said Nigeria does not need more universities, stressing that the current ones should be expanded and equipped for better performance.

The JAMB boss lamented a trend where politicians now compensate marginalized communities with the creation of universities instead of the establishment of factories and industries.