Follow Us on Google
From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The Federal Government has been urged to give all Nigerian children opportunity for quality education by allowing private tetiary institutions access to Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
Vice Chancellor, Evangel University, Akaeze, Ebonyi State, Prof. Ukpai Kalu Iche who made the call described the exclusion of private institutions that were assisting government to develop education, from benefitting from the special Fund as unfair.
Prof. Iche who addressed a press conference on the 2-8 combined Convocation ceremony of Evangel University held on March 16, 2024, noted that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), wondered why private universities in the same country should be excluded from benefits offered by the Fund.
He stressed that it was not a crime to choose to study or teach in a private university in the country hence the need for the federal government to allow private universities to benefit from TETFund.
Describing Evangel University as a “Not for Profit University” that charges the lowest fee among all the universities in the country, the VC stressed that despite the low fee they charge, the university have been paying the salaries of workers regularly as the propriety of the University which is the Assemblies of God Church , Nigeria subsidizes the institution’s expenses.
He said, “The proprietor subsidizes this university, every Assemblies of God Church in Nigeria gives two per cent of her monthly income to ensure that we maintain the lowest fee.”
The university he said, does not compromise with indiscipline, adding that the university has dress codes for identification of people in different courses.
Evangel University which took off from its temporary site in Evangel International Camp in 2012 with two colleges when the NUC gave it licence the same year, he said was established to have a tertiary institution that will cater for the moral, academic, among other development of it’s students irrespective of their religious, ethnic and other affiliations.
The university he further said, has students from 31 states of the Federation, and currently, has a total of 1,810 students from different parts of the country, adding that all the course in the university have been fully accredited by NUC.
