Yar’Adua tasks universities in MDGs

Clement Idoko, Abuja - 11.02.2008

PRESIDENT Umaru Yar’Adua has tasked universities in the country to develop programmes and training aimed at achieving the reform programmes of the administration and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This is just as he called for public and private sector participation in funding of education in the country to meet the national development challenges.

Yar’Adua, who spoke at the weekend at the 13th convocation ceremony of the University of Abuja, urged universities to be at the vanguard of national renewal and restoration which he said his administration was committed to achieving.

He said “Nigerian universities should be at the vanguard of the national renewal and restoration by actually living up to their vision and mission of being centres of excellence not only in generating ideas, but also in researches inventions.

“These are expected to service our development needs and prepare the products of the universities to meet challenges of reform and national development as enunciated in our seven-point agenda, including the challenges of the MDGs,” he stated.

Represented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr. Modibbo Umar, the president said one of the priorities of his administration was to turn around the fortunes of the education in order to project the country into the group of the leading world’s economies by 2020.