The Federal Government has appointed former Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Attahiru Jega, former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, NUC, Peter Okebukola, and others as members of a committee to reappraise the Nigerian university system.
Abubakar Rasheed, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Universities commission, NUC, disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja on Monday.
Mr Rasheed, who was before the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND to defend the 2018 budget proposed by the commission said the NUC has constituted a high-powered committee of very credible senior academics.
“Most of the members of this small committee are former vice chancellors, former executive secretaries of the NUC and some had held positions like pro-chancellor, chairman of INEC and minister of education.”
“We have given them a six-term reference to help us with repositioning Nigeria’s university system.”
“One of the areas we want them to look at is the issue of post-graduate training and how to reform the training and produce good quality PhDs.”
“How do we get to see that serious post-graduate students complete their studies within the normal period of three years? It could be less or more than three years but three years is the normal period across the world.” he added
Mr Rasheed also stressed that the NUC hasn’t rated tertiary institutions in the country for “many years,” dismissing a recent rating allegedly by the commission as fake.
“We always wake up every morning and see on the social media that the NUC has ranked (universities).”
“The NUC has not ranked any university in several years. We have not done it, but people just sit down to create it,” he disclosed.
