Adhere to transnational education –FG tasks foreign varsities

The Federal Government has charged foreign universities operating in Nigeria to adhere strictly to the country’s guidelines on transnational education as

developed by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

The Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, gave the directive in Abuja on Thursday, when he received in audience, the chancellor of Rutgers University- Camden.

Rutgers University- Camden is one of the oldest universities in the United States of America, established in 1776.

Sununu who presented a copy of the National guidelines on Transnational Education to the visiting chancellor of the University expressed Nigerian’s readiness to work with universities around the world in improving access to quality higher education.

Sununu said, “access to quality education is a priority of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, and the ministry has taken the charge of the President seriously and will stop at nothing to deliver quality education to Nigerians”.

The minister tasked institutions of higher learning to collaborate with their foreign counterparts to train more professionals to replace those exiting the system instead of lamenting over the issue of brain drain.

He added that Nigeria had the capacity to provide significant chunk of manpower needed around the globe, given the country’s population.

Sununu lauded the collaborative efforts of the Rutgers University with the University of Lagos and Ibadan, maintaining that the ministry would do everything within the ambit of the law to encourage collaboration, especially in Science and Technology.

Speaking earlier, the Chancellor of Rutgers University, Antonio Tillis, said that the university was seeking to renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University of Lagos.

Tillis said the university was also looking for collaboration with other Nigerian Universities in areas of research and exchange of academic programmes.

The Chancellor was accompanied on the working visit by the Senior Vice Chancellor of Rutgers University, Jimmy Jung.