Govt Spent N1.3tr On Funding Universities, Says Jonathan

TO further improve the quality of higher education in the country, government has expended a total of N1.3TR to the Federal universities under NEEDS Assessment Initiative, that started from 2014 and slated to end in 2019.
  
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan disclosed this at the 31st Convocation of Bayero University, Kano, which held yesterday in the school. The President, who was represented by the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, maintained that his administration was concerned with capacity development in the area of university education and other levels.
  
“Over 2252 BUK staff were sponsored by the Federal Government to attend international conferences. We did not stop at that, as we are still doing our best in that area,” said the Visitor of the university.
  
He further argued that Bayero University proved to be one of the best universities in the country.
 
In his remarks the Vice Chancellor, Prof Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, commended the federal government for a sustained intervention in the university.
  
“We are extremely lucky to be the recipient of sizeable funds, grants or allocation from the TETFund and from the NEEDS Assessment Intervention Fund for Nigerian Public Universities,” he noted.
 
On his part, the Pro-chancellor/Chairman of the Governing Council, former secretary to the Federal Government, Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, decried that the monthly recurrent grants to universities were inadequate.