FG to establish six new varsities of science and technology
Adamu
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, says the Federal Government is working toward establishing six new universities of science and technology to expand access to tertiary education.
The Education Minister Malam Adamu Adamu, disclosed this at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that the future of the world depended on science and technology.
“This government has already decided to even add more; it is going to establish six new universities of science and technology.
“And at the lower level, there will be a technical school in each state of the federation and then vocational centres at the wards and local government levels.
“You know, we have a problem of access; if you look at it last year, one million people sat for the universities but only 150,000 were taken.
“So, we still need to build more universities to create more space for those who want to get in.
“And then the fact that the six new universities are being created for science and technology underscores the decision by the government to put more emphasis on science.’’
According to him, the move is in tandem with the campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government.
He said that over the years the Federal Government had laid emphasis on science and technology by giving more access to students in such fields.
Adamu recalled that during the tenure of Prof. Babs Fafunwa as the Minister of Education, it was agreed that the ratio of science to arts should be 60 to 40.
The minister noted that ever since, the policy had been carried out by successive governments, adding that it remained the stance of the present Federal Government.
He further said that the new universities would be located in the six geo-political zones.
“Whether we agree or not, oil has limited time before it finishes; the whole economies of the world are going towards the knowledge economy.
“Actually, it is the cultivation of Science, Technology and Engineering studies that will hold the economy in the future.’’
On Almajiri issue, the minister said that the Federal Government recognised the problem; hence the building of Almajiri schools.
He said that there was a steady progress in the Almajiri education as well as boy-child drop out issue in the South-East and problems bordering on girl-child education.
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5 Comments
Nice step, right direction..But more universities of entrepreneurial and management sciences,natural medicine,maritime sciences,,engineering, transportation,,robotics and avionics are needed to leverage 21st century capacity
This is a good step in the right direction. However the current university are underfunded, under staffed and are not provided the right support. why do we want to create more school that would be under funded and staffed. what we need to be doing is adding capacity to the current universities we have, increasing their school of science to accept more students. And begin to demand more quality from them.
As laudable as this proposal is, my opinion is that it wasn’t thought through properly. The existing Universities are starving for funds and qualified lecturers are far in between. This plan should not be quantity, but quality driven.
This looks like the most confused minister in this regime. GEJ created 12 universities of Agriculture and today none hardly has a department of argriculture not to talk of specialising in argriculture – so that vision is dead. And this minister has learnt nothing and is saying he wants to create universities of science and technology – all universities have faculties of science and technology then why can’t he make these faculties and departments world-class and competitive among world universities instead of creating so called universities of technology which will end up like GEJ’s universities, teaching sociology, biology economics and nothing to make them different from regular universities? One would expect this government to first nuture the newly created 12 universities to maturity and can fine-tune them to stress the science and technology angle with the small funds thereby maximising value from revenue spent instead of new bogus waste on universities.
Absolutely spot on. We are struggling to fund and run the ones we currently have and we want to establish new ones. What exactly is the point and where is the sense in this?
We will review and take appropriate action.