Advancement Programme Forum: Alausa Orders Federal Varsities to Move Offices Under VCs

Funmi Ogundare

The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Maruf Alausa, yesterday, directed all federal universities in Nigeria to move their advancement offices from the offices of registrars to the direct supervision of vice chancellors.
Alausa gave the directive in Abuja while speaking at the opening of the inaugural National University Advancement Programme Forum organised by the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF), in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education, for vice chancellors and officials of advancement offices in federal universities.
He stressed the strategic importance of university advancement offices to institutional development and financial sustainability; and directed vice chancellors to immediately communicate the new arrangement to their colleagues.
“Take the advancement offices away from under the registrar and bring them under the vice chancellor’s office,” he stated
According to him, universities should also ensure stability in their advancement offices by appointing directors for a minimum tenure of five years, renewable at the discretion of the institution.
“You should put a tenure of at least five years for your director of advancement which, at your liberty, can be renewed. The final beneficiary will be your institution, your students and, more importantly, you. It is your legacy, so protect them,” Alausa said.
The minister also urged vice chancellors to rebuild their advancement offices by recruiting qualified personnel and avoiding frequent changes in leadership and staffing.
He called on universities to develop institutional memory by maintaining adequate staffing levels in their advancement offices rather than relying on a single officer who could eventually retire.
“Don’t just put one person in your advancement office. They will retire at some point. You don’t want to start all over again. You start building institutional memory,” he said.
Alausa further disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education ( FME) would support the deployment of a technology platform developed by NHEF to assist universities in building and managing their advancement data.
The platform, he noted, would be vetted by the ministry before being transferred to the federal government, adding that the government would bear the cost of its deployment.
According to him, “each institution would have its own login and retain ownership of its data, while the federal ministry of rducation would not have access to the individual institutional data.”
The minister also emphasised that sustainable university financing could not depend solely on government funding or internally generated revenue.
He said universities must explore blended financing involving government investment, research funding, endowments, philanthropy, alumni support, industry partnerships and other credible sources of institutional finance.
“Government funding alone is not the answer, neither is internally generated revenue alone. The answer to a sustainable future lies in blended financing,” Alausa said.
The minister said the responsibility of stakeholders was now to build a sustainable university system capable of serving future generations.
Earlier, the Chairman of NHEF, Wale Adeosun, said the organisation was established in 2004 with support from the MacArthur Foundation to help Nigerian universities become financially self-sustaining.
He noted that the foundation initially worked with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Bayero University, Kano; University of Port Harcourt and University of Ibadan, before expanding its work to include the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Lagos.
He noted that despite NHEF’s 22-year existence, the forum marked the first significant formal interaction between the foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education.
Adeosun commended Alausa for recognising the importance of university advancement and alumni engagement in strengthening institutional financing.
He said universities possessed a major untapped resource in their alumni, stressing that systematic identification and engagement of alumni could significantly reduce institutions’ dependence on government funding.
Speaking on the impact of the programme, Prof. Chinwe Alisi, Director of Linkages and Advancement at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, explained that the training had exposed gaps in the institution’s advancement structure.
She said the university had previously focused largely on linkages, leaving the fundraising and advancement component underdeveloped.
She said the institution subsequently developed an advancement framework and donor policies to provide guidelines for engaging donors and managing donations.
Similarly, the Director of the Directorate of Advancement and Linkages at the National Open University of Nigeria said the workshop had broadened her understanding of the role of advancement in university administration.
She noted that advancement offices could work closely with vice chancellors to attract additional funding, support and goodwill for their institutions.
The Director of the Directorate of Advancement and International Education at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, also emphasised on innovation and stronger institutional support as key takeaways from the programme.
He stated: “advancement is receiving greater attention at the university, particularly with the emergence of a new vice chancellor who previously served as a director of advancement.”