TECHNOCRAT MEDIA, Abuja
National Universities Commission (NUC) says universities should be waived from the Federal Government’s circular on new employment due to the shortage of lecturers.
NUC also stated that there are only 100,000 academic staff members attending to 2.1 million students in Nigerian universities.
The commission, according to The Punch disclosed this in its latest bulletin made to the medium in Abuja.
Deputy Executive Secretary, Administration, NUC, Mr Chris Maiyaki, said the commission was supervising over 200 universities consisting of 48 belonging to the federal government; 54 states, and 99 private institutions.
“The entire system has about 2.1 million students and staff strength of about 170,000 non-teaching and 100,000 academic staff.”, Mr Maiyaki said.
“Some of the problems facing the system include increased running cost, meager budgetary allocations, issue of power shortages, and shortages of manpower.”
“There is a need for universities to be isolated from the Federal Government’s circular on an embargo on new employment because of the peculiarity and distinctive nature of the universities in order for them to keep up the pace in attaining comparable standards with their counterparts globally.”
“We also have incessant interference in the NUC’s functions by some professional bodies and associations, which have continued to issue needless instructions to universities.”
“Other challenges in the Nigerian university system include the issue of digital response to COVID-19 lockdown.”, he disclosed.
Mr Maiyaki said Nigerian universities were forced to start embracing the use of technology in knowledge delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the whole world.
He explained that coronavirus had enabled Nigerian universities to begin to explore the dual-mode of teaching with more institutions developing and expanding their digital hub to commence extensive use of the online platform for teaching and learning.
“Within the period, the NUC had been conducting some activities, which included major curriculum review, assessment of universities on their E-Learning requirements, strengthening of quality assurance mechanism as well as fortifying modern methods of data processing and retrieval,” Maiyaki added.
PUNCH
