The National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) have agreed to a partnership to implement the blueprint for the rapid revitalisation of the Nigerian University System (NUS).
This is an outcome of NUC’s efforts and the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa’s commitment to mobilising funding for the NUS, which culminated in a visit by a team of experts from BADEA to the NUC on Friday in Abuja.
Receiving the BADEA team, the Executive Secretary of the NUC, Professor Abdullahi Yusufu Ribadu, who was excited about the proposed collaboration and funding, presented his visitors with copies of the Blueprint on the Rapid Revitalisation of University Education in Nigeria as a guide to areas of needed intervention.
According to him, the collaboration will prioritise some areas of need among so many in the NUS. He, however, mentioned some of the areas to include Information and Communication Technology development, skills Development and entrepreneurship, capacity building and training for staff, infrastructure, and increasing the number of universities on the digitisation project.
Also speaking, Director Special Projects of the NUC, Dr Joshua Atah, explained that following NUC’s push, the Honourable Minister of Education had engaged the Federal Ministry of Finance on the need for funding and support for the project, and so the BADEA team was at the NUC to identify specific areas of collaboration.
According to Atah, the NUC is pleased with Project -BRIDGE ((Building Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Growth), a proposed BADEA co-funded Project on connecting educational institutions to the optic fibre network, which aligns with the Blueprint-ICT-Dev Project, a flagship initiative and a critical component of the broader Blueprint for the Rapid Revitalisation of University Education in Nigeria, developed by the NUC in 2018 as a strategic response to critical challenges in the NUS. The project is already being funded by the French Development Agency (AFD). He further suggested other funding options, including co-funding with other development partners and a phased approach to funding of various other projects.
Speaking earlier, Country Manager, Public Sector, at BADEA, Zuhir Eshanta, who led the team, disclosed their commitment to the Digital Bridge Project of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, as well as another request from the finance ministry for the revitalisation project. He therefore requested a comprehensive report of studies conducted on the project to assist their consideration.
Zuhir, who also expressed excitement about supporting the project, told the NUC that the Bank had received a request for a $50 million loan for the project, and that both the NUC and BADEA need to agree on the areas to deploy the proposed loan.
Both parties agreed to continue the discussion as NUC was mandated to submit a list of its priority areas for the intervention.
