The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has faulted the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) over its new policy classifying public universities into “tenable” and “non-tenable” categories for the agency’s Academic Staff Training and Development (AST&D) local postgraduate scholarship scheme.

The union described the policy as an overreach of TETFund’s statutory functions and a threat to the foundational principles of public tertiary education in Nigeria.

Specifically, ASUU National President, Prof. Christopher Piwuna, said the classification was discriminatory and outside the agency’s mandate.

Besides, he noted that the approach undermines equity and fairness in the university system.

Piwuna reminded the leadership of TETFund that its core responsibility, as stipulated by law, is to manage, disburse and monitor the two per cent education tax collected from registered companies in Nigeria.

According to him, those funds are meant to rehabilitate, restore and consolidate tertiary institutions across the country, and not to determine which institutions students and scholars should attend.

He argued that if the policy is allowed to stand, it will lead to massive overcrowding in a few “preferred” universities.

This, he said, would put undue pressure on supervisory structures for postgraduate students, particularly at a time when there is already an acute shortage of qualified academic experts across various programmes nationwide.

The union leader further described the tagging of several public institutions as “non-tenable” as counter-productive.

He warned that the policy would lead to a sharp decline in student enrolment at the affected universities and demoralise senior academics and researchers at those institutions.

Instead of sidelining some universities, ASUU urged the federal government and TETFund to focus on upgrading infrastructure and academic capacity across all public universities

Piwuna noted that deploying the agency’s resources to institutionalise discriminatory practices is a direct violation of the TETFund Act 2011.

“ASUU shall continue to oppose any policy that makes TETFund vulnerable to personal and group interests in whatever guise,” he warned.