The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, on Monday inaugurated three ad-hoc committees and tasked them with research, skills and infrastructure development.
The committees inaugurated are for the operationalisation of equipment of workshops and laboratories for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (technical); implementation of Skills Development Special Intervention; and Assessment and Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence.
Mr Echono said the committees’ tasks are part of the President Bola Tinubu administration’s plan for the youths to contribute to the approach of creating wealth, jobs and being able to invent by themselves.
He asked the committees to leverage all available resources within the country to upskill young men and women both in formal and informal sectors.
“We are trying to upgrade the equipment in workshops and laboratories in our schools. So the practical mode and hands-on form of teaching and learning will be emphasised,” he said.
“Each of those facilities we are going to upgrade will have sustainable power supply and will be able to use them all the year round.”
He said one of the advantages of the intervention is that students in tertiary institutions would be able to make a “reasonable impact in their communities when they are not in school sessions by mounting programmes, skills development programmes and being able to bring those from the rest of the community to come to learn about these skills.”
Speaking on the committee on Assessment Review of TETFund centres of excellence, Mr Echono said the idea behind these centres is the realisation of not having enough resources to improve all their facilities at the same time.
He added that the agency decided to prioritise some areas where some institutions have comparative advantage to establish those centres to take advantage of the quality of faculty and to use them at points where some of the things and desires they have are realised.
He said: “There’s no point trying to do everything at the same time, so we want to upgrade them and find out what they need to perform better. Also, the key areas that they should specialise in so that we can make them more useful.”
Upgrading research infrastructure
Mr Echno noted that a 2022 survey by the agency at beneficiary institutions revealed that most of the equipment, laboratories and workshops are either inadequate or underutilised.
Under the 2024 intervention budget, he said N25 billion has been budgeted for the upgrade of the equipment in workshops and laboratories for universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education to ensure effective implementation of the intervention.