http://campuswaka.com: students' voice
The Federal Government has expressed its commitment to salvaging ailing public universities in the federation,this was coming from the chairman of NEEDS committee, Gov Peter Obi of Anambra state.
Gov. Peter Obi who was speaking in Abuja at the inauguration of a technical committee to study and bring out actionable recommendations from the report of the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian public universities, said the FG had mandated members to identify actionable recommendations in the short, medium and long terms. While addressing the committee he said
``We can no longer continue to have committees without results. We might not have 100 per cent results, but we will like to put in 100 per cent efforts.
``This time, we want actionable issues identified and dealt with,”
On the rationale behind the advocacy for new universities, Obi said: ``Nigeria needs more universities, we cannot say because we irresponsibly allowed existing ones to decay, we can't build new ones.
``You cannot say because you have bad roads, you won't construct new ones.
``You can repair the bad roads and still construct new ones.’’
The governor said the present administration was doing all it could to fix the bad system caused by years of neglect. He furthermore, urged Nigerians to work towards achieving ``certificates that make them employable.’’
The NEEDS committee was set up by the Federal Government to look into the sorry state of Nigerian public universities and make recommendations on the way forward.
The committee had, in Aug. 2012, come up with a comprehensive report in which it recommended, among other things, the splitting of the Federal Ministry of Education for easy management of the education sector.
The technical committee, inaugurated on Monday, has three weeks to submit its report.