Uchenna Cecil Izuora
Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, says off-grid solar systems being installed in Nigerian schools are raising the quality of education.
The systems are being deployed through the Energizing Education Programme (EEP), implemented by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).
In an interview on the Afropolitan Podcast, Dr. Alausa explained that unsustainable utility costs and frequent national grid failures have long disrupted academic stability, undermined scientific research and diminished campus life.
He said that creating a reliable learning environment requires removing universities from the national transmission grid entirely.
According to the minister, moving tertiary institutions to dedicated solar mini-grids will protect lecture halls and student housing from repeated outages.”We are taking our campuses off the national grid with dedicated solar power. You cannot build a modern university system where students cannot read at night, laboratories lose power in the middle of experiments, and hospitals attached to our universities are forced to run on noisy, expensive diesel generators,” he said.
Dr. Alausa also noted that high energy costs and unreliable supply have placed an unsustainable financial strain on university administrators.”The burden of electricity tariffs has been one of the heaviest strains on university finances. Instead of universities sinking hundreds of millions into electricity bills every single month, funds that should be expanding faculties or buying equipment, we are solving this structurally with clean, captive energy that operates around the clock,” he stated.
He reaffirmed that providing continuous, self-sustaining power to tertiary institutions is a central element of the administration’s human capital development strategy, positioning Nigerian universities as globally competitive research centres that can support long-term economic transformation.
He added that, beyond immediate benefits, the government has set up the Renewable Energy Asset Management Company as a special-purpose vehicle to maintain the deployed mini-grids.”As Minister, I don’t just want to leave projects that will deteriorate after two years, we are aiming for sustainability that will last beyond my tenure,” he said.