NASS joint committee moves to end breakdown in academic activities, wades into IPPIS crisis

The Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Education on Tuesday declared that they will end interruption of academic activities in this administration.

The joint committee took the decision at the 2024 budget defence when the Acting Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, Prof. Chris Maiyaki appeared before it.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Dandutse Muntari, and the co-chairman, Hon. Abubakar Hassan Fulata, asked Maiyaki who appeared with Vice Chancellors from federal universities to speak on the budget performance and challenges facing the system.

The committee vowed to investigate the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, saga as well as recruitment challenges to stabilize academic activities.

Senator Muntari, who doubles member of as Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFUND, stressed the importance of education and the need to leverage on raw materials available in the country to achieve quality education.

On his part, Chairman of Reps Committee on University Education, Hon. Abubakar Hassan Fulata, recalled challenges faced by Ahmadu Bello University when he paid a visit to Zaria, stressing that the parliament looks forward to where academics within and outside can operate freely in any of the Nigerian universities without hitches.

“As parliamentarians, we are looking forward to universities that are valued internationally.

“On series’of complaints that IPPS and recruitment process have made the work cumbersome and discouraging in Nigerian universities”, Fulata said they will look into the nitty gritty of the whole issues and seek a way forward.

He urged the NUC and VCs to make detailed submission of documents for attention.

Maiyaki, who said the country moved from one university in 1948 to 217 universities as of today, identified inadequate funding, inability to raise resources from other sources and IPPS as some of the major challenges.

He expressed optimism that challenges confronting the system would be addressed with intervention of the parliament.

Speaking on behalf of the Vice Chancellors, Prof. Sagir Abbas, Vice Chancellor, Bayero University Kano, thanked the lawmakers in the 10th National Assembly for their commitment towards solving the problem bedeviling the Nigerian educational system.