The Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Tuesday announced that due to the marked improvement in the security situation, the government has decided to reopen all tertiary institutions in southern Kaduna.
Mr El-Rufai however disclosed that the state government decided to adopt a multi-campus structure for all its tertiary institutions, a decision that will assign at least one tertiary institution to every local government area.
A statement by the governor’s spokesman, Samuel Aruwan, said the new policy had been approved by the State Executive Council as a means to further expand access to higher education, make accreditation of courses more cost-effective and respond concretely to the desire by several communities to host tertiary institutions.
The government explained that a multi-campus structure will help to make the state’s tertiary institutions more inclusive and expand the range of courses that students can study by making most courses available in all campuses.
“Memo presented to the State Executive Council indicates that the government hopes that the various campuses spread across the state can over time evolve into fully-fledged universities in their own right. That is how the campuses of the University of California system and those of the University of London have evolved.
“This multi-campus policy will be implemented in a way that assigns at least one tertiary institution to each of the 23 local government areas. The laws of some of our institutions are already been amended to reflect this.”
The government reiterated a commitment to transform KASU into a world-class university in the long-term. Part of the transition to a multi-campus structure entails moving the main campus of KASU itself to a be purpose-built main facility behind the NTI in Rigachikun.
