Fashola warns VCs to stop giving honourary degrees randomly

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has warned vice-chancellors in Nigerian universities to stop giving honorary degrees randomly.

Fashola said this on Tuesday, August 18, during a meeting with the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Daily Times reports.

He also urged them to focus on research and channel the data in their confines to guide the government, the private sector and citizens on national development.

“The world is chasing, collating data; this data is sitting in our universities. Almost every lecturer asks students to write one research paper or the other. We can use it in a useful form, to inform our government, businessmen, and the society,” he said.

He confirmed that the ministry intervened in the building of roads in 44 tertiary institutions.

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The minister charged university to come out to inform the public on government interventions.

He counseled the VCs to be discreet in the award of honourary degrees and give only deserving people, not those whose achievement is the occupation of a political office.

He also charged professors together to write an acceptable version of the Nigerian history that will be taught in schools like it was done in some other climes.

Leader of the delegation, Professor Yakubu Aboki Ochefu, said the association, which was established in 1962 and had the Universities of Ibadan, Lagos, Ife, Nsukka and Ahmadu Bello at inception, now has 174 universities.

Ochefu announced the plan to produce a compendium on the 60th anniversary of the association in Nigeria.