Ministers have been accused of one of the biggest attacks on arts and entertainment in English universities after proposals to cut funding for arts and creative subjects in higher education were confirmed by the universities regulator.

When the planned cuts emerged earlier this year, artists and musicians launched a campaign to fight the proposals, accusing the government of neglecting the country’s cultural national health by pursuing what they described as “catastrophic” funding cuts to arts subjects at universities.

The controversial reforms affect a specific funding stream which is directed at high-cost subjects in higher education and will result in money being taken away from creative arts subjects, while more is invested in other high-cost subjects, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem), medicine and healthcare, in line the government’s priorities.

The Public Campaign for the Arts warned the cuts would threaten the viability of arts courses in universities, leading to possible closures, which would in turn damage the pipeline of talent leading from higher education into the creative industries, which are worth £111bn a year to the UK economy.

Courses affected include music, dance, performing arts, art and design and media studies.

The cuts will halve the high-cost funding subsidy for creative and arts subjects from the start of the next academic year.

The universities regulator for England, the Office for Students (OfS) insisted the reduction was only equivalent to about 1% of the combined course fee and OfS funding, but campaigners said together with other cuts the impact would be devastating.

Needy students from Kenya’s bandit-prone Samburu North will benefit from Sh17 million bursary money released to the constituency by the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF).

Area Memeber of Parliament Alois Lentoimaga issued cheques for amounts ranging between Sh5,000 and Sh10,000 to more than 2,000 secondary school and tertiary college students.

Lentoimaga said needy cases that stood out, especially where children joined national schools, will have their concerns addressed separately by the committee to ensure learners’ education is not interrupted due to lack of fees.

The legislator said his priority was to ensure needy students were supported to access education for the growth of the nation while revealing that he was a beneficiary of a bursary from a well-wisher.

The legislator further announced that through the NG-CDF, he plans to construct more secondary schools and technical and vocational centers in the volatile region to ensure residents access affordable education.

He said the NG-CDF committee will allocate money in the 2021/22 financial year for the construction of more learning institutions in Samburu North.

In the bid to authenticate the actual number of pupils benefiting from the School Feeding Programme, Federal Government has commenced a verification exercise in Nasarawa State.

a total of 196, 873 pupils in public schools in the state are to be verified in the course of the exercise.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, disclosed this in Lafia, during a courtesy call on Governor Abdullahi Sule at the Government House, Lafia.

Represented by Abdullahi Usman, Technical Adviser to the Minister, she stated that the exercise was aimed at obtaining more data of the benefiting pupils in order to know the actual number of pupils across Nasarawa State.

She explained that the NHGSFP programme was a multi-faceted intervention of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to drive school enrolment, retention, boost nutrition of the pupils, support local production of food and boost income generation.

She said the idea of the exercise was to prove that those being fed are actually human beings, adding that it was aimed at providing one nutritious meal to all pupils in public primary schools in classes 1 to 3.

Farouk added that apart from the exercise, the NHGSFP as directed by President Buhari, plans to scale up the number of pupils benefiting from the programme, so as to bring more pupils under the umbrella of government’s social protection mechanism.

In his response, Governor Sule expressed gratitude to President Buhari for introducing the NHGSFP Intervention targeted at assisting the poor through the provision of one nutritious meal to pupils in public primary schools across the country.

Sule said Nigerians would be happy if the targeted people are the real and actual beneficiaries without anyone hijacking the programme.

The governor who assured of his administration’s support and commitment to ensure that the intervention succeeds in the state, called for proper monitoring and supervision on the part of the focal persons in the state.

Recall that the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, NHGSFP was launched by the Federal Government to cater for children in public schools across the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari has promised that his administration would allocate an increasing share of resources to improve learning in the country.

He said this in Daura,.

The President in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said improving the quality of education will continue to be his government’s priority.

He said this when he received the proprietress, principal, and students of a private school, Premier Pacesetters School, Daura, when they paid him a courtesy visit at his house.

The President Buhari gave assurances that more emphasis will be given to the improvement of education.

President Buhari, who interacted with some of the children, emphasized the importance of character, in addition to learning, urging them not to lose sight of the aspirations of the country.

The school proprietress, Celine Friday, while conveying to the President greetings from staff and students of the institution, commended the special attention given to education by the Buhari administration.

She used the opportunity to appeal for federal government assistance to private schools in rural communities.

Lecturers in Kenya have gone to the country’s High Court to overturn proposed governance reforms at the University of Nairobi.

The Universities Academic Staff Union wants the court to issue a permanent injunction stopping the institution from implementing the reforms announced on July 14.

Vice-chancellor Stephen Kiama and university council chair Julia Ojiambo had initiated the changes meant to eliminate duplication of functions and improve efficiency.

Through lawyer Titus Koceyo, UASU has petitioned the Employment and Labour Relations court to declare that Kiama and the council violated the constitution.

The union has also named Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha, the Public Service Commission (PSC), Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki and Commission for University Education (CUE) as interested parties.

UASU accuses Kiama of pushing for a new model that drastically and fundamentally alters the established and legal structures of the institution by abolishing colleges, schools, institutes, faculties, courses, positions and offices created by the Universities Act No. 42 of 2012.

The union says the VC planned to abolish the School of Pharmacy, Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry and Economics and “unilaterally”, merge institutes and departments.

Further, UASU says the VC has taken away the teaching and training roles from the Institute of Development Studies, leaving the PhD and master’s students with nowhere to go. They also accuse him of abolishing courses without due regard to ongoing studies.

UASU says the university ought to have involved the union, the students’ association, the Education ministry, PSC and CUE in coming up with the reforms.

The government of Rwanda is set to introduce agronomy, veterinary and nursing courses in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as part of the plans to bridge the skills gap.

These new programmes, set to be rolled out in the next academic year which begins in September this year, were announced by Prime Minister Édouard Ngirente.

The Premier revealed this while presenting to parliament, government actions on the promotion of TVET schools and Polytechnics.

He said government realised there was a problem when agronomist and veterinarians work on large projects and leave the small agriculture projects to agricultural community advisors, hence creating a gap.

Ngirente said by introducing these courses in TVET schools, the country will create a critical mass of skilled workers who can reach more people in communities.

He said through this, they can teach farmers basic agriculture, veterinary and nursing skills.

In response, Member of Parliament, Marie Therese Murekatete, said the country has only two institutions that offer agro-veterinary courses, adding that the institutions did not have sufficient laboratories or equipment to facilitate student learning.

The Premier said in order to address the shortage of nurses, the government will introduce the nursing courses in TVET secondary schools, and they will be awarded high school diplomas.

Rwanda is faced with a huge gap in the nursing industry, with nurses and community workers overwhelmed with work.

According to the Ministry of health by the end of June 2020, Rwanda had a total of 10,447 nurses working in both private and public health facilities.

However, nurses per population ratio had improved from one nurse per 1,291 people in 2010 to one nurse per 1,198 in 2020.