The Federal Government has assured parents and stakeholders that the proposed management arrangement for King’s College, will not lead to an increase in school fees or be replicated across other Federal Unity Colleges.
He said the Federal Government had also made it clear to labour unions that the arrangement would remain limited to King’s College, while the government would retain responsibility for funding the rehabilitation of other Unity Colleges.
Alausa also dismissed reports that the government planned to sell any of the Federal Unity Colleges, describing such reports as misinformation.
“Let me be unequivocal, Federal Government is not selling any Unity College. Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, does not have the intention to sell any Unity College, and we will not sell any Unity College.
“That is the government position, and go and write it down and hold on to that, we are not selling the government’s institutions,” he said.
The minister explained that the King’s College arrangement was being pursued because of the scale of infrastructure decay at the school and KCOBA’s willingness to commit substantial resources through a non-profit foundation.
He said the government faced a significant infrastructure deficit across the Unity Colleges, with available budgetary resources insufficient to address the needs of all the schools simultaneously.
According to Alausa, fully rehabilitating Unity Colleges in the South-West alone would cost nearly N100 billion, prompting the government to explore alternative funding mechanisms, including public-private partnership models.
He disclosed that approval had been secured to repurpose about $20 million from a World Bank-supported programme for school rehabilitation, with about 20 Unity Colleges already selected for the intervention and plans to extend similar support nationwide.
The minister urged journalists to visit the schools and independently assess their conditions, saying the government’s objective was to improve standards while addressing long-standing infrastructure challenges.
He said the King’s College arrangement would be subject to stringent key performance indicators to ensure that agreed standards were maintained.
The Ministry of Education has also established an implementation and monitoring team to conduct unannounced inspections and assess compliance with the agreement.
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Alausa said the Memorandum of Understanding contained provisions protecting the interests of the government and students, including the commitment that fees would not be increased.
“There is no fee increase in this arrangement. It is part of the MoU we signed,” the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, also said.
Ahmad further assured that no teacher would lose their job as a result of the arrangement, saying affected teachers had been given the opportunity to indicate where they wanted to be redeployed in line with the Public Service Rules.
She said the government was also implementing teacher capacity-building programmes as part of broader efforts to improve learning outcomes in Unity Colleges and other schools.
According to Ahmad, a committee had been established to review the agreement and address concerns raised by stakeholders, with union representatives to be included in a committee monitoring its implementation.
The government said it remained open to further discussions with the unions and would consider legitimate concerns that could improve the arrangement or be incorporated into the MOU.
The clarification comes amid an ongoing dispute with education unions over the proposed management arrangement for King’s College.
Alausa said the government had earlier engaged the Trade Union Congress, TUC, and other unions over the issues surrounding the schools and reached a six-point agreement with the TUC leadership, following which a communiqué was issued calling on workers to return to work.
He, however, said another faction of the unions had continued with protests despite the engagement. The minister said the government invited the faction for further discussions on the condition that ministry workers return to their offices and the ministry gates remain open.
He said the conditions were necessary to ensure the safety of officials and maintain law and order. Alausa condemned alleged harassment of staff, destruction of property and blocking of ministry gates, while stressing that peaceful demonstrations remained permissible within the law.
“We will not tolerate that as a government. We’ve given them all the room and scope to do their protest within the ambit of the law,” he said.
Ahmad similarly said the government could not engage with protesting unions while the ministry remained shut. “With the workers’ protest, we cannot meet with them when they have shut the ministry. Normalcy must return to the ministry if the unions want us to listen to them,” she said.
Alausa said King’s College was established to train future leaders and had produced prominent Nigerians over the years.
He maintained that the proposed arrangement was intended to restore the quality and excellence historically associated with the institution, rather than relinquish government ownership.
The ministers said the decline in standards across Unity Colleges had developed over several decades and would require sustained investment in infrastructure and teacher development.
The government is also considering various public-private partnership models for rehabilitating Unity Colleges, with Ahmad citing the Kano model as one of the options under consideration.
NAN
