July 16, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has debunked reports that it planned to sell public universities to private investors.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, made the clarification during a meeting with heads of agencies, parastatals, and directors in the Ministry of Education in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Mamman said the report was “an absolute lie and completely false. This government believes in the provision of government institutions and has not shied away from the force that the government needs from the private sector.
“For decades now, the private sector has played a major role in the provision of tertiary education and there are more private universities in Nigeria than public universities combined.
“What the government has done is to open up the tertiary education level, in particular, the universities for global competitiveness that allow those who operate in this area at the international level to come into the country and set up institutions open for collaboration with our local universities under guidelines of what is called trans-national education.
“They have also saved those countries foreign exchange and brought more money into the country and that is what the government has done. It has opened up tertiary education so that people from the rest of the world can invest in our tertiary institution’s system. Government is not parting with any of its institutions.”
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