FG orders varsity advancement offices to report directly to VCs, directs diversified funding drive
By Uji A Iliyasu, Abuba
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has directed Nigerian public universities to overhaul how they raise money, ordering that Advancement Offices henceforth report directly to Vice Chancellors rather than Registrars, and warning that government allocations alone can no longer sustain the tertiary system.
Dr Alausa gave the directive at the National Advancement Forum 2026, where he disclosed that only four of the country’s 68 federal universities were making meaningful use of alternative funding streams such as research grants, endowments, alumni giving, philanthropy and industry partnerships. He described the figure as unacceptable and told Vice-Chancellors to treat resource mobilisation as a core leadership responsibility rather than a peripheral task.
“Government funding is not enough. Universities live, function and excel on blended funding,” the Minister said, urging institutional heads to move beyond administering allocated budgets and instead build the relationships needed to attract additional resources.
He said Vice-Chancellors in advanced university systems actively network with alumni, philanthropists, businesses and research funders to secure support for their institutions, and challenged Nigerian leaders to adopt the same approach, using their institutions’ intellectual capital to draw funding for laboratories, scholarships, research chairs and innovation programmes.
Dr Alausa stressed that the push for diversified financing was not a signal that government support was being withdrawn.
He noted that the Tinubu administration funds university personnel costs in full, allows institutions to retain 75 per cent of internally generated revenue, and continues to back universities through direct and special interventions from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). These measures, he said, provide a foundation that institutions must now build on with more resilient and diversified funding sources.
Alongside the reporting-line change for Advancement Offices, the Minister directed that Directors of Advancement serve a minimum internal tenure of five years, renewable where appropriate, to allow them time to cultivate lasting relationships with donors and partners. “Advancement Office .