By Deborah Nnamdi
The Federal Government has approved N30bn for the nation’s 30 Universities of Agriculture to immediately commence mechanized farming.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja while declaring open a retreat organized by the Ministry of Education for pro-chancellors of federal universities.
The announcement came with a directive for specialized universities to focus strictly on their core mandates and cease offering programs unrelated to their original purpose.
Alausa emphasized the importance of universities of agriculture owning and operating mechanized farming systems.
He revealed that each university would receive N1 billion as a take-off grant for the initiative.
Similarly, 18 medical schools will receive N17 billion to train healthcare professionals, including medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses.
Additionally, the government has finalized arrangements to provide startup grants to university students to support their entrepreneurial endeavors.
He said, “We need to look critically into your curriculum, into the kind of courses that your universities are doing. We have the Federal University of Agriculture offering courses in accounting. You’re University of Agriculture, focus on what you’re set up to do. We have the Federal University of Technology offering courses in insurance.“You’re University of Technology, focus on that. We have several universities there. You are a faculty of Agriculture, you don’t have a farm. What are you teaching? We will work with you to encourage you to have your farm.
“Every university that has a faculty of agriculture, we now want you to set up your own mechanized farming and livestock production, and we have put aside about N30 billion for that. We will give you N1 billion. You will have to apply for N1 billion to set up your mechanized farming in each of these universities.
“That will also help to contribute to food security in your country. The president, one of the first pillars in his priority area is food security. We want you as the people who build our future, the education system, build the value of the future and freedom and opportunities.
“We want you to start using your power, your position to create opportunities for attainment. We are also working with a tech fund. As I said, we’re focusing on STEMM. We’ve identified about N17 billion of the high impact with TETFUND.
Our special high-impact projects to 18 universities. This will be directed, focused on a medical school to specifically train doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses. 18 of the universities will share that N17 billion. But we want you to focus on these four categories of courses.
“For doctors, pharmacists, dentists, and nurses. We’re also working with a green energy company. We’ve identified each university as a pilot in each geopolitical zone.
“We’re doing something that we call renewed campus transportation. We’ll give 25 electric tricycles to those universities for them to use. The student will put it to the student union. They will operate it on a low-payment platform. Probably N15 for each drop for each of the universities. That as well we’re working on.
“We also are going to roll out student startup innovation and entrepreneurial grants that we will give to very innovative students. We’ll give this grant to them to help them unleash the innate potential that they have in them. So our focus is to give the youth the support they need to be able to contribute to this country. We’re uniquely privileged today.”
