Sustainable funding panacea to declining tertiary education – Opiah

Goodluck Nanah Opiah, the minister of state for education, has advocated effective and sustainable funding mechanisms for tertiary education in Nigeria to curb the declining standard of learning at the country’s uppermost cadre.

Opiah disclosed this on Tuesday, November 22, 2022, through Kelechi Mejuobi, the special assistant to the minister on media and public affairs in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja.

The minister in his statement explained that the periodic low funding facing tertiary institutions which have also affected negatively the education standard at the ivory tower level could be addressed when sustainable funding mechanisms are built into the system.

“Funding of our tertiary institutions is undoubtedly the underlying reason for their decline, and it is very apposite that we begin to seek effective and sustainable funding mechanisms for our tertiary institutions.

“It should be noted that at the inception of this administration in 2015, the federal ministry of education under the leadership of Mallam Adamu Adamu, initiated a consultative group of experts, professionals and international development partners and other relevant stakeholders to discuss the key issues and challenges of the education sector, and, chart a way forward.

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“The main objective of this initiative was to reform the education sector in general. The outcome was presented as Education for Change, a Ministerial Strategic Plan (MSP).

“The MSP articulates a pathway to reposition Nigeria’s education sector to effectively play its central role in achieving development agenda.

“The plan is built on ten pillars and around three result areas – access, quality and systems strengthening.

“A comprehensive focus of the plan is on tertiary sub-education with well-defined objectives and strategies for implantation,” the minister said.

Recall that one of the agitations of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is proper funding of the public tertiary institutions in the country.

ASUU has been on loggerheads with the federal government over proper funding of the public universities across the country and the welfare of its members which resulted in eight month industrial action by the union.

The impasse was temporarily put to a stop by the industrial court injunction that the lecturers must go back to work before their requests could be listened to by the court according to the trade law.