“I am very particular about two critical areas, which is also of great concern to me and the Board of Trustees.
“These include the issue of accommodation and ICT, in spite of
various interventions by TETFund our tertiary institutions still have
inadequate lecture theatres, research laboratories, hostels, and ICT
facilities.
“In the area of accommodation, it is a known fact that the number of
bed spaces in our tertiary institutions is only 10 to 15 percent of the
student population.
“For example, the University of Abuja has a thousand-bed space for
thirty thousand students. Also, the University of Calabar has two
thousand bed spaces for fifty-five thousand students, this amount to 3.3
percent and 3.7 percent respectively.
“So, in the course of my tenure, I will ensure that we encourage the
universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education to go into
public-private partnership arrangement that at the end of the day, they
will sign an agreement that will transfer the ownership of the campuses
from the private developer to the universities authorities,” he said.
The chairman said that TETFund planned to wire up all the tertiary institutions with ICT that would facilitate e-learning.
“If these were desirable or luxury before, then it has become
essential due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we hope that this will
encourage e-learning, e-libraries and if possible conduct
e-examinations, as you cannot have meaningful researches anywhere if you
cannot log on to the internet,” he said.
Speaking, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, Executive Secretary, TETFund, said
that the Fund recently established 12 Centres of Excellence, among
others, within the country to promote research in various tertiary
institutions across the country.
He added that two universities in each geo-political zones were
selected and the agency was working on having additional centres in
other universities in 2021 while polytechnics and colleges of education
will have theirs in the following years. (NAN)