By Ahmed Idris
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the establishment of six new private universities in some parts of the country. The universities are Admiralty Univerity in Ibusa, Delta state; Spiritan University in Nneochi, Abia state; Precious Cornerstone University in Ibadan, Oyo state; Pamo University of Medical Sciences in Port Harcourt, Rivers state; Atiba University in Oyo state; and Eko University of Medical and Health Sciences in Lagos state.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, at the end of the weekly FEC meeting in Abuja.
He said more applications would be brought to the council for approval in due course.
“The NUC is going to take the issue of accreditation very seriously and if any university fails to meet their standard, we are going to deregister their courses and if enough courses are deregistered, it will lead to the closure of the university,” he said.
Asked why the federal government is finding it difficult to keep to the terms of memorandum of settlement with non-teaching staff unions, the minister said: “As far as I know, we had sat down with the unions, we met and these issues had been thrashed out, I don’t know that there was problem that rose later because I travelled out of the country and came back yesterday (Tuesday).
“But as far as I am concerned, these things had been addressed before I left and the formula that was used to share the money was agreed by them. They sat down with the officials in the Ministry of Education and agreed. So the money was not for ASUU alone, it was for all the unions.”
The minister said the federal government is currently addressing the issue of shortfall in salaries of workers in tertiary institutions across the country.
“The shortfall in salary is being addressed. On the teachers of staff schools, it will certainly take time. Government has accepted the court verdict that says they should be reinstated and they will be reinstated.
“I think the only issue before I left was that they will be in salary relevant to the what they are doing, they are not university staff, so they will just be receiving normal salaries like the grade level they get,” he said.
