The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has said that the Federal Government has just approved an additional N25billion for public universities to meet the demands set by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
The minister said the money will be shared to the beneficiary institutions directly, adding that some universities since 2013 had not been able to access the third tranche of the N200billion released by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Adamu, who stated these in his valedictory ministerial press briefing.
The minister appealed to ASUU to shun further strikes and allow for peaceful negotiations.
After ending a three-month strike, the ASUU and the Federal Government signed a Memorandum of Action in February 2019 and a government team was also set up to renegotiate the 2009 agreement.
Adamu said on Tuesday that the Federal Government had approved the release of additional N25billion to universities.
He said, “Funding has been one of the major challenges of tertiary education in this country. At the inception of this administration, we inherited an unimplementable agreement between the Federal Government and ASUU whose total value was put at N1.3trillion which payment was to be spread over six years.
“Between 2014 to 2017, the nation witnessed an economic downturn and consequently, there were no releases in the N1.3trillion. However, last year, the Federal Government released N20billion directly to universities and all of them have got their share. The Federal Government has just approved an additional N25billion to be shared to beneficiary institutions directly.
On the out-of-school children, the minister said the government had failed to reduce the 13.2million kids it met by half, as it had promised.
Adamu noted that despite all interventions and efforts, the population of out-of-school children stood at 10.2million kids.
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