The Al-hikmah University, Ilorin, has called on the Federal government provide grants for private universities in order to fund research and infrastructural development following the role played the private universities in the Nigerian education system.

The Vice Chancellor of the Institution, Prof. Noah Yusuf, made calls on Tuesday while speaking at the 10th Convocation Ceremony in Ilorin.

Yusuf noted that covid- 19 experience has demonstrated capacity of private institutions in complimenting governments’ efforts in the education sector.

He appealed to federal government to support the private universities through Tetfund for them to be able to operate well and contribute their quota in education sector.

He said, “COVID-19 did not alter the academic calendar of the institution.

” Worthy of note is the fact that our university was able to stick to its academic calendar, despite the ravages of Coronavirus outbreak.

“To bring home the effect of Covid-19 on education, the WHO, in an update statics revealed that 46 million learners were affected in Nigeria.

” This year’s scheduled 10th Convocation is therefore achieved a collaborative and team work effort despite the Coronavirus pandemic.

” The University introduced full on-line lectures, examination and scoring

“The parents co-operated and by providing their wards with laptop computers and Android smartphones and data

” Substantial resources were committed to the online learning platforms, which enabled the University to actualize the schedule graduation date of these students

” One of the lessons that the educational sector has to learn from the pandemic is that self-sufficient, dynamism and pro-activeness are key are key to survival for academic institutions, particularly private ones like ours”, said the VC.

The institution according to the vice chancellor is graduating 751 of which 18 are first class, 240 are in second class upper division, 402 in second class lower division while 91 are in third class division.

Speaking on the number of graduands who bagged third class in the school , the vice chancellor said Alhikmah university will not compromised by to train and produced best students based on their capacity after rigorous teaching.