Diversify Funding or Risk Stagnation – Education Minister Tells Varsities
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has challenged vice-chancellors of Nigeria’s public universities to urgently diversify their sources of funding, warning that institutions that continue to depend heavily on government allocations may struggle to sustain growth and academic excellence.
Alausa gave the warning at the National Advancement Forum 2026, where he expressed concern over what he described as the poor resource mobilisation capacity of Nigerian universities.
According to the minister, only four of Nigeria’s 68 federal universities are currently making meaningful use of alternative funding sources, including research grants, endowments, alumni contributions, philanthropy and partnerships with industry.
He described the situation as unacceptable and urged university administrators to make resource mobilisation a central responsibility of their leadership.
“Government funding is not enough. Universities live, function and excel on blended funding,” Alausa said.
He urged vice-chancellors to move beyond the traditional practice of administering government allocations and actively develop relationships with alumni, businesses, philanthropists, research funders and other strategic partners.
The minister said successful universities globally had demonstrated that institutions could strengthen their capacity by cultivating diverse funding networks to support laboratories, scholarships, research chairs, innovation programmes and other critical needs.
Alausa noted that Nigerian universities possessed substantial intellectual capital which, if strategically deployed, could attract significant investment from the private sector and other funding partners.
He, however, clarified that the Federal Government was not withdrawing its support for tertiary institutions.
According to him, the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has demonstrated its commitment to education through increased budgetary allocations, infrastructure investments and other interventions.
He said the Federal Government currently bears the personnel costs of public universities in full, while institutions retain 75 per cent of their internally generated revenue and continue to benefit from interventions by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund.
“These provide a strong foundation,” the minister said, stressing that universities must build on the support by developing diversified, sustainable and resilient financing systems.
As part of measures to strengthen fundraising across the university system, Alausa directed that Advancement Offices in all universities should report directly to vice-chancellors rather than registrars.
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He instructed vice-chancellors attending the forum to immediately communicate the directive to their respective institutions.
The minister also directed that Directors of Advancement should have a minimum five-year internal tenure, renewable where appropriate, arguing that frequent changes in leadership could disrupt long-term relationships with donors, alumni, industries and philanthropic organisations.
“Advancement Office operation is a professional job,” he said, describing advancement officers as professional fundraisers who require stability, institutional support and the confidence of university management to deliver effectively.
Alausa further directed universities to overhaul their alumni engagement systems by developing functional databases and deploying technology to maintain lifelong relationships with graduates in Nigeria and abroad.
He said properly managed alumni networks could become reliable sources of long-term institutional support.
The minister also recalled that, before the Tinubu administration, some research and endowment funds had been transferred into the Treasury Single Account, TSA, creating difficulties in accessing the resources and raising concerns over their management and utilisation.
He said President Tinubu subsequently directed the development of a framework allowing research and endowment accounts to be moved from the TSA to commercial banks of the institutions’ choice.
According to Alausa, the policy was intended to provide universities with greater flexibility and enhance confidence in the management of research and endowment resources.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has met you halfway. He has given you the leverage and the opportunity to do your jobs well. You must now take advantage of it,” he told the vice-chancellors.
The minister expressed disappointment that many institutions had yet to fully exploit the opportunities created by the administration, warning that universities that failed to broaden their funding base could face difficulties sustaining growth, research and academic excellence.
He also disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Nigerian Higher Education Foundation (NHF), would move beyond training and capacity building to develop a comprehensive national framework for sustainable financing of tertiary institutions.
The proposed framework, he said, would cover endowment governance, accountability, research grants, Advancement Office structures, alumni giving, industry partnerships, philanthropy incentives, revenue management and transparency.
Alausa said the initiative was aimed at building a more financially resilient university system capable of mobilising resources beyond government funding while maintaining accountability and institutional sustainability.
By PRNigeria
