The Federal Government has inaugurated the Board of Trustees of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Governing Councils of some federal tertiary institutions with a call on them to utilize their expertise to advance their respective institutions.
The inauguration ceremony was performed recently by the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman at the TETFund Auditorium in Abuja.
Speaking at the event, Prof. Mamman congratulated the chairmen and members of the various boards for their appointments with a reminder that the Federal Government had high expectations of them in addressing the challenges facing the tertiary education sub-sector.
While stating that their appointments were in recognition of their track records, established integrity, and experience, the Minister thanked them for accepting to join in the task of repositioning tertiary institutions for quality teaching and learning, research and community service.
Prof. Mamman also called attention to some challenges the boards could face in their institutions such as low carrying capacity and instability of academic calendar arising from strikes embarked upon by unions over the years.
He disclosed that the government had met with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to address an impending strike by the union.
“We have had some meetings already. We spent some time on Wednesday discussing the issues, and we ended up developing a very robust plan to address them. We hope that what we put in place will help us avoid any form of strike in the universities,” he said.
He also lamented the rising cost of electricity and the eventual disconnection of some institutions by service providers and assured that the Ministry of Education was collaborating with the Ministry of Power to address the challenge. He revealed that the Federal Government was exploring powering institutions with CNG for uninterrupted power supply and cost effectiveness.
In his goodwill message, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono congratulated the TETFund Board of Trustees and Governing Councils of the various institutions on their inauguration.
He noted that the education sector is critical to national affairs as the foundation for all development efforts, and Nigeria with its fast-growing youthful population needed to equip them to ensure their contribution to national efforts.
In his goodwill message, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, called for judicious utilization of funds accruing to TETFund to foster development, noting that the only thing sustaining public tertiary education in Nigeria remained TETFund.
In their remarks, the Executive Secretary of National Commission for Colleges of Education (NNCE), Prof. Paulinus Okwelle and Ag. Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Dr. Chris Mayaki both assured the TETFund Board of Trustees and Governing Councils of their support in placing tertiary institutions in Nigeria in their pride of place.
