The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, says the federal government has no plans to sell universities to private investors.
Mamman made the clarification during the second quarterly engagement of the ministry with heads of units and chief executive officers of parastatals and agencies under the ministry.
Mamman said the report was “an absolute lie and completely false.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities had accused the federal government of plans to hand over federal universities to investors through public-private partnerships.
But the minister dismissed the notion but emphasized the need to allow those who operate universities at the international level to come into the country and set up institutions or partner with existing institutions.
“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,” the minister said.
