From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy, Enugu has bemoaned its exclusion from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund).
It appealed to the authorities to make the institution a beneficiary of the Fund to help the college upgrade its infrastructure.
Rector of the college, John Emaimo, made the plea during a press briefing on the second combined convocation ceremony of the college slated for Saturday.
Emaimo said the upgrade of the facilities became necessary following the expansion of the college from a diploma to degree-awarding institution.
He said despite the college’s modest achievements and irresistible vision to break barriers in both academic and the health sector, the institution is limited by a number of challenges that slow down its rapid pace of progress.
“Chief among them are infrastructure deficit and inadequate funding. Although we have worked hard to build a number of classrooms and offices for our students and staff, they are still far from being enough. Since my advent as the rector of this college, we have built a number of modern classrooms to ensure our students learn in a conducive atmosphere, yet we still need more.
“A major setback for us has been our inability to access tertiary education fund (TetFund). We had thought that being a federal institution, our eligibility to access the fund should be automatic. But reverse has been the case as several efforts we made had proved abortive.
“We, therefore, call on all appropriate authorities and lovers of education who desire the kind of revolution that we are currently spearheading to bridge existing gaps in the areas of manpower development in our health and education sectors to come to our aid. Individuals and philanthropists are also called upon to support our quest for exclusive manpower development,” Emaimo said.
He recalled the college was establishment in 1955 in Lagos as Federal School of Dental Technology and subsequent relocation to Enugu in 1982, where it has been at the forefront of producing dental technologists and therapists in Africa.
“For instance, the only four professors of Dental Technology in South Africa were trained by this institution in mid-80s before they later proceeded to build on that knowledge at Cardiff University where they all obtained PGD, MSc. and PhD. These professors later returned to South Africa where they pioneered a degree programme in Dental Technology.
That institution remained the only university in Africa offering post-graduate programmes in Dental Technology until 2018 when we established our own School of Postgraduate Studies,” the Rector said.