A university teacher, Muritala Awodun, has canvassed public-private partnership ownership arrangement as a panacea for governance and funding challenges of public universities
Awodun, a professor of Business and Entrepreneurship at Ojaja University (formerly Crown-Hill University), Eiyenkorin in Kwara State, said federal and state universities could be turned around through PPP.
He challenged President Bola Tinubu to take the lead by using PPP model to revamp tertiary institutions.
Awodun spoke while moderating the fourth breakout session of the Third Annual Conference of Forum for Innovation in African Universities (FIAU), in Abuja
The conference theme was “Strengthening Resource-Constrained African Universities Through Partnership.”
Awodun, director of Centre for Enterprise and Human Capital Development of Ojaja University, listed major areas that demand funding as infrastructure, teaching, research, capacity development, endowment and community development.
Noting education tax has provided some succour to infrastructure needs of public varsities, he said the others remain an albatross.
Awodun posited that the success recorded by private Covenant, Babcock, Afe Babalola, Redeemers, and Igbinedion, were not due to availability of funds from their owners, but more of visionary governance and management that prioritises performance measurement, efficiency, productivity, innovation and commitment.
His words, “The federal and state governments, as owners of public universities, could save themselves from the quagmire of the present challenges by adopting enterprise model to turnaround all the 111 public universities in Nigeria and bring them to self-sufficiency in a maximum of 10 years.
“The Federal Government under President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, should take the lead in this regard with the federal universities and watch the results and reliefs that will come out of it for the universities and the government.”