The vice chancellor of Bayero University Kano, BUK, Professor 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.
Mr Abbas told journalists in Kano on Sunday that the palliatives included soft credit facilities, transportation and foodstuff.
He explained that the university had introduced a special loan scheme for the staff to enable them pay their children’s school fees.
“For those who have children that are studying in the university, we have an arrangement with our micro-finance bank where a staff will borrow the registration fees and will pay 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 in the university; some have one, some two, while some have more than that.
“Even before we arrived at the current registration fees we debate over and over, and we unanimously arrived at the current charges, which is the least when compared to other universities across the nation,” he stated.
The vice-chancellor also disclosed that: “We provided two luxurious buses which will be conveying our staff free from our staff quarters at Zoo road to 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 quantity and give it to the university workers union for any staff who want to collect as loan and will pay within the duration of six months.”
Mr Abbas maintained that all these efforts were geared towards alleviating the economic hardship facing the university staff.
NAN
