By Favour Nnabugwu

TERTIARY Education Trust Fund, TETfund, has warned Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities, CNANU, to firmly refuse to be coerced by any institution’s executive management to do their bidding.

Giving the warning at the flag- off of the needs assessment in Abuja recently, Executive Secretary, TETfund, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the Federal Government is desirous of ensuring quality and standard education in the country.

He admonished members of the needs assessment committee not to listen to vice- chancellors, their deputies and registrars of various universities they shall be visiting.

”There is no way we can correct the abnormalities if we don’t know the present state of our universities. If there is no clean map of the challenges, how do we address them?”

Prof. Yakubu noted that there is need for educationists and the government to tell themselves the home truth about the current state of the various universities, regretting that Nigerian universities can hardly compete with those of other countries in terms of facilities.

He lamented that research has revealed that many of the country’s universities do not have decent facilities which he said, can be provided by the Federal Government only if the government has a true picture of the state of the varsities.

Also speaking, Prof Ukachukwu Awuzie, national chairman of ASUU and a member of the committee, admitted that facilities in the nation’s institutions are indeed backward.

Awuzie corroborated, “Basic information is needed and the time has some for the improvement of the system. Most of the infrastructure is decayed, teaching materials are obsolete and the basic requirements are lacking”, he stated admitting that the  federal government was beginning to appreciate what ASUU has been clamouring for, which is the need to revitalise the condition of Nigerian universities.