The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has raised concerns concerning the financial responsibilities of public universities, arguing that a structural overhaul in university budgets is needed and the National University Commission (NUC) should handle all regulatory and financial functions.
Oloyede made this assertion during an interview on Inside Sources, aired on Channels Television on Sunday.
Oloyede who previously served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, emphasized that university education is highly sensitive and should be administered by experts rather than being subject to political influence.
Oloyede criticized the current practice where individual universities lobby the National Assembly for budget approvals, stating that this system favors institutions based on their political connections rather than genuine educational needs.
“We can still re-engineer the situation to have the things we need. We need to look at the funding mechanism. The National Universities Commission (NUC), for example, should be left alone to run the universities. Hold the National Universities Commission responsible for the management of the universities,” Oloyede said.
He recalled his time as Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors, when the NUC was actively overseeing university budgets.
According to him, autonomy in universities would be better achieved if the NUC were allowed to coordinate funding and administration rather than letting each institution defend its budget separately before lawmakers.
“Now, every university goes to the National Assembly for their budget, for their defence, and the more you can pull the weight, the more will determine,” he stated.
Oloyede also noted that when the NUC managed university budgets, it relied on data-driven metrics, such as student enrollment per discipline, to allocate funding fairly. This approach ensured that resources were distributed based on actual needs rather than political lobbying.
He lamented the decline in capital development funding, attributing it to the growing number of support staff in universities, which he believes has led to financial inefficiency.
Prof. Oloyede proposed an output-based funding model, where universities receive funding according to the number of students they train in each discipline.
The JAMB Registrar also criticized the proliferation of new universities, arguing that instead of creating more institutions, the government should focus on expanding and equipping existing ones for better performance.
He pointed out a troubling trend where politicians establish new universities as a form of political compensation to marginalized communities, instead of setting up industries and factories that would create jobs and boost economic growth.
According to Oloyede, redirecting resources towards strengthening existing universities, improving infrastructure, and ensuring proper funding allocation would significantly enhance the quality of higher education in Nigeria.
Since the beginning of Tinubu’s administration, over 10 new institutions have been created with some being converted from colleges of education to Federal universities of education.
