Universities, Polytechnics, COE’s To Resume Soon – Minister

Minister of State for Education, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba has given assurance that universities, polytechnics and Colleges of education will resume academic activities soon. The minister stated this yesterday while responding to questions at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) briefing in Abuja.

The minister, however, did not give the specific date of resumption, he said the ministry is working to articulate the situation report from the National Universities Commission, (NUC) and other regulatory bodies of various tertiary institutions and present to the Presidential Task Force for evaluation.

He called on Nigerian students to exercise more patience and stop rioting as the government is in full negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

He noted that the minister of education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, executive secretary of NUC and permanent secretary all met. We have reviewed responses from about 78 universities already and most of them are private universities who are already insisting that they are ready to go”. “We also have 50-50 responses from the state-owned universities and we are working to upscale that and make sure that everybody is ready to go”.

“When all of these is taking into context, we will have them back at PTF so that all the various players in the PTF family will then review it so that we can give a go-ahead  for schools to reopen.

We are positive that time is around the corner, but we don’t want to bandy around dates, we just want to remain positive, and the sooner we can get that, the better.” With this development, it is expected that the resumption date will be announced very soon