FG Orders VCs To End Reliance On Govt Allocation
FG Orders VCs To End Reliance On Govt Allocation
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has ordered Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian public universities to end their reliance on government allocation and urgently diversify funding sources for their institutions.
Alausa gave the directive at the National Advancement Forum 2026, where he disclosed that only four out of 68 federal universities were currently making meaningful use of alternative funding opportunities such as research grants, endowments, alumni giving, philanthropy and industry partnerships.
He described the situation as unacceptable and charged university leaders to make resource mobilisation a core responsibility.
“Government funding is not enough. Universities live, function and excel on blended funding,” the minister said.
He stressed that vice-chancellors must move beyond managing allocated funds to actively building relationships that attract additional resources for institutional development.
He noted that in advanced university systems, vice-chancellors network with prominent individuals, alumni, businesses, philanthropists and research funders to secure resources, and urged Nigerian university leaders to adopt the same approach to fund laboratories, scholarships, research chairs, innovation programmes and other strategic priorities.
The minister said the call for greater resource mobilisation was not a withdrawal of government support, pointing out that the administration of President Bola Tinubu had demonstrated strong commitment to education through significant budgetary allocations, tertiary infrastructure investment and other interventions.
He explained that the Federal Government currently funds personnel costs in full, while universities retain 75 percent of their internally generated revenue and continue to benefit from direct and special interventions by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
To strengthen institutional resource mobilisation, Alausa directed that all university Advancement Offices should henceforth report directly to the Office of the Vice-Chancellor rather than the registrar, and asked vice-chancellors present at the forum to communicate the directive to their institutions immediately.
He also directed that directors of Advancement should have a minimum internal tenure of five years, renewable where appropriate, to enable them build lasting relationships with donors, alumni, industry and other funding partners.
He described advancement officers as professional fundraisers who require institutional support, stability and the confidence of university management to deliver results.
Alausa further urged universities to take alumni engagement more seriously by developing functional databases and deploying appropriate technology to maintain lifelong relationships with graduates in Nigeria and across the world, stressing that alumni engagement should be treated as a strategic component of institutional advancement.
He recalled that before the present administration, some research and endowment funds had been moved into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which created challenges around access and affected confidence in the management of such funds.
He said President Tinubu subsequently directed the development of a framework allowing research and endowment accounts to be moved out of the TSA to commercial banks of choice, thereby creating greater flexibility and confidence.
Alausa expressed disappointment that many institutions had yet to fully exploit the opportunities created by the administration and warned that institutions that fail to diversify their funding base risk limiting their capacity for sustained growth, research and academic excellence.
The minister said the Ministry of Education, working with the Nigerian Higher Education Foundation (NHF) would develop a comprehensive national framework for sustainable financing of tertiary institutions covering endowment governance, accountability, research grants, Advancement Office structures, alumni giving, industry partnerships, philanthropy incentives, revenue management and transparency.
He added that all public universities would be progressively onboarded into the framework, with each institution expected to build an endowment, establish an effective advancement structure, maintain a functional alumni database, strengthen research funding capacity and develop productive relationships with industry, philanthropists and other strategic partners.
