Free education impossible now, says -- VC

The Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin, Professor Abdulganiyu Ambali yesterday said free education in the strict sense of it could be cumbersome to implement in the nation’s educational system.

Prof Ambali, during a media parley in Ilorin, believed that the best that could be achieved at making education free under the present global economic recession was to subsidise the cost of qualitative education.

He praised the Federal Government’s ownership of the Federal Universities across Nigeria, over its vision for a sustainable education system by allegedly subsidising education at that cadre by between 70 and 80 per cent.

Ambali said, “Free education is comparable to a saying on the fact that there is no free launch anywhere in the world. At present, the Federal Government is paying for education at tertiary institutions. It is supporting it probably by 70 or 80 per cent. Whether or not this will continue, will still depend on the Federal Government.”

The Vice Chancellor, who expressed the view that charges at some of the nation’s private universities are exorbitant, however, noted that Nigerians are experts at the level of putting right their priorities.

Describing yearly preferences for Unilorin admission as arguably the highest in Nigeria at present, Ambali said, the University has stuck to the best practices possible “without discrimination or favour.”

He said the university has reduced the idea of implementation of most of its capital projects citing economic down turn and the need to avoid “embarrassment from contractors.”

Ambali, while praising his predecessors disclosed that Unilorin would clock 40 years by October this year, adding, “it will continue to be regarded as better by far university.”