The Vice Chancellor of Bayero University Kano (BUK), Prof. Sagir Abbas, says the institution has introduced not less than four welfare packages for its staff to cushion the effects of the current economic pangs.
Abbas told newsmen in Kano on Sunday that the palliatives included soft credit facilities, transportation, and food.
He explained that the university had introduced a special loan scheme for the staff to enable them to pay their children’s school fees.
“For those who have children that are studying at the university, we have an arrangement with our micro-finance bank where a staff member will borrow the registration fees and pay them back in six months.
“The university will be his collateral and will settle the interest of the loan that particular person accessed.
“We know many of our personnel have children who are currently undergoing different programmes at the university; some have one, some have two, and some have more than that.
“Even before we arrived at the current registration fees, we debated over and over, and we unanimously arrived at the current charges, which are the least when compared to other universities across the nation,” he stated.
The vice-chancellor also disclosed that “We provided two luxurious buses that will be conveying our staff free from our staff quarters at Zoo Road to the new campus; they shuttle two times daily.
“For the junior staff, we’ve purchased a number of brand new bicycles, which will be given to those who show interest at the rate of N50,000 and would be paid within nine months.
“We also bought food in large quantities and gave it to the university workers union for any staff who wanted to collect as a loan and would pay within the duration of six months.”
Abbas maintained that all these efforts were geared towards alleviating the economic hardship facing the university staff.
NAN
