Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
The Vice Chancellor of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago iwoye , Ogun State, Professor Ayodele Agboola, has appealed to the Federal Government not to abolish the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund).
Agboola made this appeal while speaking some newsmen in Ago Iwoye, Ogun State at the sidelines of the 34th Convocation of OOU.
The VC posited that “instead of scrapping TETFUND for Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND)
both can be operating pari-pasu because they perform different functions”.
He explained that TETFUND’s role is to assist the government-owned higher institutions at the federal and state levels in the area of infrastructure and capacity building of the staff, while NELFUND was established primarily to assist students to secure loans without interest.
The VC stressed that the agencies of the FG have different functions, arguing that merging or scraping one for the other may create confusion.
Agboola said that most of the modern buildings in the Nigerian Universities were built through the assistance of TETFUND, adding “even most of the buildings in OOU were built through the assistance of TETFUND except one or two donated by some individuals”.
On whether TETFund funding should be extended to private universities, the OOU Vice Chancellor said: “TETFUND is for government-owned universities, since private universities are profit making institutions there is no way you will use the tax payers’ money for a profit making venture such as a private university”.