Private universities are unrelenting in their calls for inclusion in the humongous funds disbursed to government-owned institutions by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). While they continue with their agitation, IYABO LAWAL reports that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is stoutly against such development, as it sees them as profit-making ventures.
Several higher institutions in the country are in pathetic shape, and attempts to salvage their facilities, and enhance scholarship have not resulted in large-scale success.
Amid the riveting years of strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and institutional and financial corruption rocking the Nigeria University System (NUS) academic research opportunities and grants have also suffered immensely.
From the 1980s, the decay of all tiers of education has experienced a monumental rise, with facilities steadily collapsing, and lecturers’ morale at its lowest. Put differently, an enabling environment for conducive teaching and learning was absent.
In December 1990, the Federal Government constituted the Gray Longe Commission to review the submission of the 1959 Lord Ashby’s Commission of post-independence Nigerian Higher Education
The Longe Commission recommended, among others, that higher education be funded through earmarked tax borne by companies operating in the country. The Federal Government and ASUU thereafter signed an agreement on funding universities on September 3, 1992.
In January 1993, the Education Tax Act No. 7 was promulgated alongside other education-related decrees. The decree imposed a two per cent tax on assessable profits of all companies operating in the country.
This was a home-grown solution to address issues of funding to rehabilitate decaying infrastructure, restore the lost glory of education, return confidence to the system, as well as, consolidate the gains thereto; build the capacity of teachers and lecturers; ensure teacher development, and the development of prototype designs, among others.
The Education Tax Fund Act further mandated the agency to operate as an “intervention fund to all levels of public education (federal, state and local). This mandate was discharged between 1999 and May 2011, when the ET Act was repealed and replaced by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act due to lapses and challenges in operating the Education Trust Fund.
Last May, just before President Muhammadu Buhari left office, he approved N320 billion as the 2023 Intervention Budget of TETFund.From that sum, universities are to receive N1, 154, 732, 133 each (this comprises N954, 732, 123 as annual direct disbursement and N200 million as zonal intervention), polytechnics N699, 344, 867 each (containing N569, 344, 807 as annual direct disbursement and N130 million as zonal intervention), and colleges of education N800, 862, 602 (comprising N670, 862, 602 as annual direct disbursement and N130 million as zonal intervention).
In June this year, TETFund revealed that it disbursed N27.6 billion to support Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in public higher institutions in the last seven years.
ASUU’s defiant posture towards private varsities’ inclusion as beneficiaries
ABOUT N1.702 trillion has been disbursed to Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions from 2015 to date, compared to N1.249 trillion disbursed from inception in 1993 to 2014. Much of the marked difference is due to efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of the education tax collections, including an increase in tax from 2.0 per cent to 2.5 per cent in 2021.
With the regular injection of these steady and substantial funds, and with the magnitude of infrastructure that sprang up in public institutions, private universities were moved enough to have a bite at the massive pie.
That became known, at least, in 2018, at a public hearing on five bills and a motion by the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education, which was headed by Aminu Suleiman (APC-Kano) in Abuja.
With no love lost between ASUU and private universities, the move to include the latter as TETFund beneficiaries was rejected outright. The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) also stood against the proposition. Both associations then claimed that including private universities in the TETFund pool would not augur well for the country’s educational system.
The then Executive Secretary of TETFund Abdullahi Baffa kicked “vehemently against the amendment,” urging the House of Representatives to discourage any amendment to the TETFund Act 2011, which “would put more pressure on the fund by expanding the list of beneficiaries.”
The ASUU president at that time, Biodun Ogunyemi, said: “Private universities should contribute, not to be collecting from TETFund. They are charging and making a profit.”
On October 12 this year, ASUU again decried plans to include private universities as beneficiaries of TETFund interventions. President of the union, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, restated the opposition at a two-day interactive session between TETFund and all unions of beneficiary institutions. ASUU claimed that including private universities in the TETFund pool would lead to the proliferation of private universities lacking quality.
Professor Luke Onuoha, a university lecturer, however, disagreed with that position stressing: “Enough of making private university lecturers play second fiddle in research engagements. TETFund should stand out as a strategic partner to all academics, irrespective of whether they teach in public or private universities.”
Citing the United Kingdom, United States, and South Africa, where higher education funding is determined based on research realities and output, Onuoha urged the agency to review its funds disbursement to only public universities. To adjust TETFund’s focus on only publicly-owned higher institutions, the law establishing it will need an amendment.
What the TETFund Act says
SECTION 7 of the TETFUND Act 2011 (Management and administration of the Fund) says: “The Board of Trustees shall administer the tax imposed by this Act and disburse the amount in the Fund to federal and state tertiary educational institutions, specifically for the provision or maintenance of essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning; instructional materials and equipment; research and publication; academic staff training and development.”
The disbursement will also cater to “any other need, which in the opinion of the board of trustees, is critical and essential for improving quality and maintaining standards in the higher educational institutions.
It states further: “The Board of Trustees shall administer, manage and disburse the tax imposed by this Act based on the funding of all public tertiary educational institutions; equality among the six geo-political zones of the federation in the case of special intervention and equality among the states of the federation in the case of regular intervention.”
The distribution of funds is stipulated to be in the ratio of 2:1:1 between publicly-owned universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.
The main source of income available to TETFund is the 2.5 per cent education tax paid from the assessable profit of companies registered in Nigeria. The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) assesses and collects the tax on behalf of TETFund. The monies are disbursed for the “general improvement of education in federal and state tertiary education.”
Private varsities unrelenting in search for lifeline
Like many of his contemporaries and counterparts, the Vice-Chancellor of the Dominion University, Ibadan, Prof. Abel Olorunnisola, in faulting ASUU’s opposition, stressed that it was wrong for the association or other stakeholders to believe that private universities were established primarily to make a profit.
According to Olorunisola, most private universities are not breaking even, but are only rendering services and supporting Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
“TETFund came up as a result of a strike in 1992. The law that set up the agency did not envision the barrage of private universities that we have now,” the vice chancellor said.
“The fund is a tax from the private sector. All universities are producing manpower for the country. So, private universities need to be included in the pool of beneficiaries because they are also contributing to the socio-economic development of the country.”
However, Olorunnisola noted that the budget allocated to private universities “may not be equal to the ones going to government-owned institutions, but excluding them is not good at all,” lamenting that “for 20 years, some of the private universities may not make anything.”
Samuel Aboyeji, a visitor to McPherson University, who is one of the many individuals that are campaigning for private varsities inclusion in the TETFund pool said: “For any union or association to hold such a view is nothing but a disservice to the country, knowing fully well that this money is generated from the private sector. So, private universities benefiting from it should be a welcome development for those who mean well for our dear country,” Aboyeji said.
The Vice Chancellor of Mountain Top University, Prof. Elijah Ayolabi, noted that public universities have an edge over their private counterparts because of TETFund.“If you remove what public universities benefit from TETFund, you will see that most private universities are better than them. So, the government should also grant access to private universities to secure TETFund grants for research and development. This will go a long way in both scholarship and national development,” Ayolabi stated.
On his part, the Founder of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado Ekiti, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), noted that since the resource is contributed by private companies, there should be no reason why the disbursement should be limited to only public universities.
However, the legal luminary cautioned that if the law allows all private universities to access the fund, there would be a rush by everybody to establish a university.
“It is my view that private universities should benefit from TETFund only after such institutions are fully established, and have graduated the first set of their students in all the courses which the National Universities Commission (NUC) permits them to run.
Secondly, Babalola disclosed that TETFund’s money allocated to universities should not be used for erecting buildings, but to encourage and support research works and expansion of laboratories and ICT.
The Chancellor, of Precious Cornerstone University (PCU), Ibadan, Wale Oke, advocated a review of the TETFund Act to accommodate private universities, arguing that the mandate of the agency for the rehabilitation, restoration, and consolidation of tertiary education in Nigeria can only be partially met, and hard to fulfill, if its focus continues to remain exclusively on government-owned universities.
“Private sector players in banking, aviation, agriculture, and other sectors have received different forms of support and funding. So, should private operators in the education space, which is even a more critical sector, with a foundational role in driving national development not be accorded the same consideration?” Oke asked.
These arguments are even more strengthened by the fact that the bulk of investors in tertiary education are social entrepreneurs whose primary interest is not profit.
