The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has commended the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF) for its National University Advancement Programme Forum.

The minister also directed that all universities’ advancement offices should be under the Office of the Vice Chancellor.
Speaking in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the first National University Advancement Programme  Forum meant for the vice chancellors and officials working in the advancement offices of federal universities, organised by the NHEF in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education, Alausa said the vice chancellors of Nigerian universities need to rebuild their advancement offices and staff them with knowledgeable people.

“Take the advancement offices away from under the registrar; bring them under the office of the vice chancellor. The 18 universities’ vice chancellors that are here, I want you to send out a memo and tell all your colleagues that the Minister of Education has directed that all university advancement offices must be under the Office of the Vice Chancellor effective immediately.

“You should put a tenure, at least five years, for your director of advancement, which at your liberty can be renewed. The final beneficiary will be your institution, your students and, more importantly, you.  It is your legacy. So, protect them. Those offices should be under your purview. And give them all the attention.

“The NHEF has developed a technology platform to help you build your data. We are going to vet the platform. The platform will be transferred over to the Federal Government. It will be the Federal Government’s property. So, get all your advancement offices to use that platform. We will pay for it.  But your data will be individual to you. The Federal Ministry of Education will not see any data. We will just help you post it. Every institution will have its own log in.  But we are supporting the technology platform for you,” Alausa said.

He urged the vice chancellors to continue to give the advancement officers and directors all the support they need financially, advising them to ensure that they attend training and also build a pool of staff.

He added: “Don’t just put one person in your advancement office. They will retire at some point. You don’t want to start all over again.  You start building institutional memory.”

“At this point the direction is clear. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has demonstrated that this government will not renege on its responsibility to education. The historical education budget and the investment in critical tertiary infrastructure are evidence of that commitment; but our responsibility to build a system remains strong and sustainable for generations to come.

“Let me repeat, for emphasis, that government funding alone is not the answer; neither is internally generated revenue alone. The answer to a sustainable future lies in blended financing – government investment combined with research funding, endowment, philanthropy and alumni support, industry partnership and other credible sources of institutional finance. This is not experimental; it is how successful university systems around the world operate. Nigeria must and should not be left alone. We are not reinventing the wheel; we will identify what works, which the NHEF is helping to adapt intelligently to the Nigerian environment and implement.”

The Chairman of NHEF, Wale Adeosun, recalled that The MacArthur Foundation started the Nigerian Higher Education Foundation in 2004 with the goal to help the Nigerian university system to become self-sustaining.

“They selected four universities to work with. Those were Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Bayero University, Kano; University of Port Harcourt and the University of Ibadan.  We at the NHEF then added University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and also the University of Lagos. In the 22 years that the NHEF has existed, this is the first time the NHEF has had any interaction and relationship with the Federal Ministry of Education,” he said.

Adeosun thanked the Minister of Education for his leadership. “We have your knowledge of how important advancement is.  I commend you for all your research, the knowledge, your passion, the focus you have and for realising that the biggest single resource that our universities have is our alumni. The University of Maiduguri just got up here and talked about 60,000 alumni in the last 40 to 50 years. Identifying their alumni and reaching out to them can fund that school forever and the school will never need a dime from the Federal Government of Nigeria,” he stated.

Director Linkages and Advancement, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Prof. Chinwe Alisi, recalled how the training in  June this year impacted her job.

“After that training we had to go back, but to do that we needed a framework; we needed policies and there were no policies in place. We had to sit back to develop the advancement office, develop the donor policies; even if a donor is giving you money, there is a procedure. We even had to put in place the advancement forum,” she said.