The Federal Government has denied plans to privatise public universities, according to Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education.
News About Nigeria reports that he made this clarification during the ministry’s second quarterly engagement with heads of units and CEOs of parastatals and agencies.
This statement comes after the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) accused the government of planning to hand over federal universities to private investors through public-private partnerships, as reported by NAN.
“There is no plan to sell off universities to investors,” he said, noting that the policy of the government allowed for transnational education.
According to him, “transnational education is a policy of what this government is doing to open up tertiary education by taking people from the rest of the world to come and invest in our tertiary system.
“Some people are carrying information that the federal government is selling off to private investors its universities. This is absolute lie and completely false.
“This government believes in our public institutions. However, as we all know, this government has reforms that this country needs.
“The private sector will play a major role in the provision of tertiary education, as there are more private universities in Nigeria than public universities combined.
“What this government has done is open up the tertiary education level, in particular the universities, for global competitiveness,” he said.
The minister stressed the need to allow those who operate universities at the international level to come into the country and set up institutions either for themselves or in collaboration with local universities.
He said that this was in no way to sell its institutions, noting that guidelines on transnational education had been in place.
Mamman said the country must take a cue from what is obtainable in other countries to benefit from the advantage of transnational education.
“In other parts of the world, like Asia, they have benefited immensely of having international institutions in those countries.
“They have taken standards to those countries and also for the exchange and bringing money to those countries,” he said.
He further said that the engagement with heads of agencies as parastatals was to review the progress, and challenges and reaffirm commitment towards the educational landscape of the country
