The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono has disclosed that the Fund has since inception in 2011 funded a total of 5,525 physical infrastructure in its Beneficiary Institutions, thereby bridging infrastructure gaps in the institutions.
The Executive Secretary made this known recently while speaking at the 26th Seminar of the Nigeria Academy of Education held in Abuja where he delivered a lecture titled “Funding of Tertiary Education in Nigeria”.
Speaking on TETFund’s response to the funding of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, Arc. Echono stated that in fulfilment of its mandate of providing intervention support towards the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in Nigeria, the Fund has also provided funding for 188 equipment fabrication and 576 faculty/departmental libraries in tertiary institutions across the country.
“In addition, the Fund has awarded grants of 19,297 Institutional Based Research (IBR) projects and 912 research projects under the National Research Fund (NRF) which is designed to support impactful research which will contribute to national developmental efforts as well tackle global challenges.
“The fund has also sponsored and supported several research and innovation initiatives such as Research for impact (R4i), TETFund Alliance for Innovation Research (TETFAIR), and the Innovation Fellowship for Aspiring Inventors and Researchers (i-FAIR) programmes targeted at deepening impactful research and uptake of research outcomes with potentials for commercialization as panacea to solving societal problems,” he said.
Speaking on capacity building of staff of Beneficiary Institutions, the Executive Secretary stated that the Fund has sponsored 23,271 academic staff of public tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria for Ph.D programmes, while 15,977 academic staff have been sponsored for Master’s degrees to date.
While noting the importance of tertiary education to sustainable development, Arc. Echono stated the need to sustain the funding of tertiary education in the country.
“Sustainable financing of tertiary education requires predictable and guaranteed funding. Hence, the future lies in sustainable funding, which is clearly rooted in sharing costs, diversifying income sources, creating new sources of income, building partnerships at home and abroad, and creating wealth beyond teaching and research.
“The funding challenges for tertiary education system inevitably impacts on the individual institutions. The inability of Government to solely and fully finance tertiary education necessitates that the institutions be given the leverage to explore alternative sources of funding to become more efficient and effective in line with new vistas,” he said.
Accordingly, the Executive Secretary recommended that funding models such as cost-sharing, students loans, scholarships and bursary, R&D, partnerships among others, could be explored as workable options for sustainable funding.
