PanNigerianNews 
A professor of pragmatics and discourse analysis at the Department of English, University of Ibadan, Professor Akin Odebunmi, has said that lecturers send their children to private universities by obtaining loans.
Odebunmi stated this, on Friday, while responding to a claim that university teachers are non-chalant about the plight of poor children in public universities because they have their own children attending private universities.
University lecturers in Nigeria, under the auspices of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have embarked on industrial action since February 14 this year, with no end in sight, a situation raising much concern among parents and students especially, even as the Federal Government doesn’t appear concerned.
Reacting through a WhatsApp group, Odebunmi remarked that lecturers in public universities often make the choice of private universities for their children when they fail to meet the criteria for admission in the face of intense competition in public universities, informing that sending their children to private institutions is, however, undertaken by accessing loans.
The scholar said, “Public university lecturers allow competition and do not support admission policies that will force their children into the system and close the door to others who sometimes perform better than their own children.
“For this reason and other policy related matters, for instance, children’s younger age, some public lecturers take loans which they sometimes pay for a long time to secure equally good courses for their children in private universities.
“That sacrifice has provided opportunities for other people’s children to attend ederal universities.
P”No university lecturer in Nigerian federal universities has the convenient means to send his/her ward to a private university. It’s a sacrifice with a lot of consequences on the family.”
