Reps warn colleagues against proliferation of tertiary institutions

Reps warn colleagues against proliferation of tertiary institutions

OrderPaperToday – Some members of the House of Representatives have warned the 8th Assembly to avoid ‘tertiary institution proliferation.’

The warning came on Thursday during deliberations on two tertiary institution establishment bills.

The bills are: A bill to upgrade the Federal College of Education, Omoku to Federal University and a bill for an Act to establish the Federal Polytechnic, Gwoza, Borno State, sponsored by Uchechuwku Nnam Obi (PDP, Rivers) and Asabe Valita (APC, Borno) respectively.

Raising the alarm on the current number of tertiary institution bills being debated, Babale Bashir (APC, Kano) noted that even though he supports the Federal Polytechnic, Gwoza, the 8th assembly has over 100 of such bills.

He said: “We have about 100 bills on [the] establishment of Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education, how are we sure we can finance them if we establish them?”

Joining him, Sani Abdul (APC, Bauchi) said that the tertiary bills are being used for “electioneering campaign[s],” thereby blocking the people with genuine aspirations of correcting the education imbalance.

“We need to have a holistic overview of the entire country, we need to rationalize on the basis of states that are deserving, we need properly funded institutions,” he said.

Also speaking on the matter, Chidoka Obinna (PDP, Anambra) said that the recent proliferation will not improve the country in the long run, advising that institutions should be provided on the basis of priority.

However, the two bills scaled through their second reading and were referred to the Committee on Tertiary Education.