Senate Ask Corporate Organisations to Help Fund Higher Institutions in Nigeria
In line with the need for corporate organisations to contribute meaningfully to the well being of this country, the Senate Committee on Education has called on companies operating in Nigeria to as a part of fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, help in the funding of institutions in the country.
Vice-chairman of the committee, Senator Adeyeye Olusola said this during a visit to the National Universities Commission, NUC last Monday.
He urged corporate organisations, including multinationals such as MTN and others, to incorporate universities in the CSR.
Senator Olusola said: “These companies only fund projects that they know they would get their money back in contracts. They are feeding fat on the country, but do not plough back into the system’.
While commending the NUC’s ‘energy and push’ in overseeing the universities, Senator Olusola urged the Commission to create an enabling environment that would make the job of lecturing more attractive and rewarding.
He equally tasked the Commission on creating other means of funding institutions and not rely solely on the government.
Lending his voice, the Committee Chairman, Prof. Uche Chukwumerije said the Committee was at the Commission to exercise its constitutional duties and members were there as partners in progress and not as “inquisitors.” “We shall therefore appreciate a free-flow of information relevant to the exercise of this function,” he said.
In his response, the Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie, said the Commission had lived up to its expectations by investing a lot of funds into the universities that should enable them stand on their own.
Okojie said having realised the importance of education in driving the transformation agenda of the present administration; the Commission had embarked on a rigorous review of the university system to achieve quality assurance.
The NUC scribe used the medium to reiterate that government’s aim in the creation of new universities was to ensure access adding that quality assurance was a top priority towards the realisation of this goal.
He said the Commission had among other things, embarked on a curricula review of academic programmes of the universities and strengthening of existing structures in the universities.
- Vanguard
Related posts:
- Soyinka Condemns Proliferation of Higher Institutions in Nigeria
- Senate Education Committee Advocates Scholarships for Indigent Students
- Senate Moves to Scrap Post UTME Sreening Exams
- Senate Approves 70 Years as Retirement Age for Professors, Other University Staff to Retire at 65
- Fuel Subsidy Probe: Expect Thorough Report-Senate