State varsities face hard times as governors cut subventions

Hit by shrinking allocations from the Federation Account, state governments  are  abandoning the responsibility of funding their universities, The PUNCH’s investigations have revealed.

Findings showed that many state governments had reduced subventions to their universities, while others had stopped funding the institutions following the economic downturn in the country.

It was gathered that the situation was worsened by the fact that some states had established many tertiary institutions.

Paucity of funds, investigations showed, had affected state universities, with many of them struggling to pay salaries, while   research, which is one of the core mandates of university education, had been abandoned in many of them.

Even the Akwa Ibom State University, whose owner-state is one of the richest in terms of allocation from the Federation Account, is not exempted from the problems.

The Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities in the institution, Mr Imeh Okop, in an interview with The PUNCH, lamented the poor funding of the university.

Although he admitted that the state government had been doing its best in paying salaries, he said not much had been done in areas of infrastructure and manpower development.

“Manpower training is zero,” he added.

The ASUU chairman said almost all the structures in the school were built by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, a Federal Government agency.

Okop stated, “There are no hostels for students.  The ones that were built by TETFUND, the present administration of the school came and restructured them to offices; two at the Ikot Akpanden campus and another two at the  Obio Akpan campus. This has had disastrous consequences on the students who have no option but to stay off campus with high rate of promiscuity.”

The university ‘s spokesperson, Mr Akaniyere Ibanga, said although the state government was trying its best, there was the need for more funds.

The spokesman, who refused to disclose the amount the institution got from the state government, said the university was spending good little money it realised from its internally generated revenue judiciously.