A lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Dr. Tade Oludayo, has revealed that lecturers are now pooling funds to secure accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC) for courses in most public universities across the nation. Dr. Tade, who teaches in the sociology department, emphasized that lecturers are personally contributing to sustain the struggling state of public universities in the country.
Expressing his concerns in a letter titled “A letter to President Tinubu on public universities,” which was made available to DAILY POST in Ibadan, Dr. Tade alleged that the university system is currently under assault by the ruling class. He stated that lecturers are investing their own resources to support the viability of public universities.
In the letter, Dr. Tade wrote: “To get courses accredited in many departments in public universities by the National Universities Commission (NUC), lecturers in those departments contribute money to prepare for the accreditation because most of these universities don’t release money or the school administrations have also become nonchalant like their political class counterparts.”
He further highlighted instances where university staff had to personally pay for door labels/tags and cited an example of a colleague who brought his own generator to power his class due to frustrations with the system. Dr. Tade also pointed out that the federal government owes lecturers substantial amounts in earned academic allowances for over six years.
Dr. Tade urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to recognize the challenges facing public universities and emphasized the need for urgent attention and rescue, emphasizing that investing in education is crucial for national development.