No plan to sell varsities to private investors, says FG

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, on Tuesday said the Federal Government has no plans to sell universities to private investors.

Mamman made the clarification at the Second Quarterly Engagement of the ministry with heads of units and chief executive officers of parastatals and agencies under the ministry.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities had accused the Federal Government of plans to hand over federal universities to investors through public-private partnerships.

”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 on 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 an 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 to 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 our 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 from 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 toward the educational landscape of the country.