Pro-Chancellors cautions FG against closing universities beyond next month

The Committee of Pro Chancellors of Private Universities (CPCPU) has warned of dire consequences should the universities remain closed beyond next month. 

A statement signed by Tunde Olofintila, Head, Corporate Affairs Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) said  the communiqué issued at the end of its Emergency Virtual meeting of July 25, the CPCPU made it abundantly clear that private universities are ready to reopen having put in place all the necessary requirements and protocols specified by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to ensure a safe and secure campus. 

The body  appealed to the Federal Government to reopen the country’s 78 Private Universities which have been shut alongside other educational institutions in Nigeria since March 23 within the next one month.

“We are pleased to have proactively and productively engaged with the complexities and complications arising from the pandemic in the last four months of closure.”

“However, we have noticed with a heightened sense of trepidation that serious distortion and damage, in relation to academic calendar and resource base, await our institutions, should the closure of universities be prolonged beyond the next one month.”

“Ultimately, the preparation of our students for a productive future may be compromised and this will not augur well for a country that is still grappling with employment challenges for its graduates”.the communique reads in part.”

“We are prepared to open in phases, first with the graduating students, and probably with the first year students”, the Communiqué said. 

The plea becomes the more imperative because CPCPU affirmed that its members round the country had made sustained efforts to comply with the guidelines for the reopening as detailed in its template submitted trough the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, to the Federal Government.

In the communiqué which was signed by Former Minister of Education and Pro-Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, ABUAD, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, the CPCPU highlighted the overwhelming contributions that Private Universities have continued to make in the manpower training and development in Nigeria.

Adeniran stressed that private universities remain fully committed to producing competent graduates in a timely manner through their ethical standards and settings, building credible leadership and followership for a better Nigeria. This, Adeniran said calls for the full support of Government as is the case in advanced countries of the world.

Emphasizing the place of universities in the scheme of things round the world, Adeniran said: “It is globally acknowledged that prompt solutions to economic, medical and scientific problems are best secured through the active participation of universities as knowledge workers through the performance of their teaching and research functions”. 

Despite the globally acknowledged place of universities round the world, the former Minister was worried that “further closure of our universities will amount to sounding a death knell to the continued viability of our institutions.