TheNational Universities Commission (NUC)has no hand in the appointment of Vice-Chancellors for universities in the country, says its Executive Secretary, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed.

Rasheed, who clarified this during an interactive section with newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that the appointment of VCs was wholly vested in the hands of board members of the universities.

He also said that the Minister of Education or the President of the Federal Republic did not also have hands in the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of any university.

Rasheed, however, said that the commission was collaborating with Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences (ICPC) to weed out illegal universities springing up in the system.

“We have set up a committee to look into that and I can tell you that we are doing a lot to end the ugly trend of the illegal universities,” he said.

Rasheed urged the public to assist in exposing such illegal universities, saying that the task of safeguarding the quality of the university system was not only that of the commission.

He said the commission was facing serious challenges from the universities, calling for concerted efforts to ensure that the system continued to thrive.

Rasheed also said that industrial actions were the biggest threats to the nation’s universities’ calendars.

Rasheed decried: “There is hardly any two federal universities with the same academic calendar and this is caused by unions’ strikes.”

He, therefore, said that the commission had given vice-chancellors a directive to ensure that a semester lasts for not less than17 weeks.(The Nation)