Posted on: Tue 14-07-2020

The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has held a consultative meeting with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), state commissioners of education, vice-chancellors and key stakeholders on issues relating to the safe reopening of schools nationwide.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Sunny Echono, disclosed this yesterday during the inauguration of the governing councils of 13 new federal universities in Abuja.

His words: “The last few days have witnessed very intense consultations by the honourable minister and critical stakeholders in the education sector. We have held a meeting with commissioners of education across our states, vice-chancellors of all universities in the country, separate meetings with our various provosts and rectors across the colleges of education.

“We also held a meeting with the NCDC and few experts in our ministries and agencies, all geared towards finding a solution, assessing the state of preparedness of the country at all tiers, and to see how we can work towards a safe reopening of our institutions.”

He went on: “We believe despite the challenges in the country, there is need to continue to take steps to ensure that we deliver to our people quality tertiary education, and work towards proffering solutions to our problems, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are very glad that our universities and polytechnics are taking the lead in the area of research, response, equipment, and they have been offering advice to the government on how to address the pandemic.” Inaugurating the council members, the minister charged them to block loopholes, and come up with ideas that would shore up the internally generated revenues of their institutions.

He also called on them to comply with the Federal Character Commission in the appointment of officers. In his remarks, Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed, said the event marked the beginning of a new phase in the introduction of first 12 specialised ivory towers.

Source: Guardian 

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