From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) on Tuesday launched the Tertiary Education, Research, Applications and Services (TERAS), a digital platform that was designed to enhance easy access to services of TETFund.
The digital platform will also provide easy access to academic resource materials as well as research works from different institutions, thus enabling students and institutions to enjoy unlimited access to several materials that are relevant to their academic programmes.
TETFund Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono, in his address at the launch of the digital platform in Abuja, on Tuesday, further explained that TERAS is a transformative digital platform that will revitalize and fortify the Nigerian tertiary education landscape by providing an all-encompassing platform that consolidates essential services of TETFund under one roof.
He explained that over two million students and staff of beneficiary institutions are currently captured on TETFund’s Beneficiary Identity Management System (BIMS), predicting that the number might grow beyond three million before the end of the year.
He confirmed that the TERAS digital platform will also serve as a centralized hub for tertiary education services, thus fostering quality assurance, collaboration, efficiency, and innovation.
“It was conceived during the challenging days of the COVID-19 pandemic when our education system ground to a halt. The impact was profound, but it also served as a catalyst for action. The government, recognizing the need to mitigate disruptions in education, swiftly set in motion a series of policies and directives through the Federal Ministry of Education that culminated in the creation of TERAS.
“Our journey towards TERAS was also influenced by the ever-increasing importance of ICT, across various innovations spanning data and analytics, the internet of things, convergence, blockchain, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and others.
“Policies have been crafted and implemented to harness the power of technology, unleashing its immense potential to uplift our educators, empower students, and produce a workforce that is globally competitive and able to address national challenges as well as exploit opportunities for sustainable economic growth and development.”
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who launched the platform, commended TETFund for the innovation that will, expectedly, herald greater transformation in the education sector.
He highlighted the importance of such a transformative digital platform, charging students and institutions to maximize the platform for the good and development of students and institutions.
He assured that the platform will provide the solution to the academic disruption challenges that were witnessed during the COVID-19 lockdown which resulted in disruption in the academic and non-academic programmes. “Never should we have such academic disruption again.”
Secretary General of the Committee of Vice Chancellors (CVC), Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, in his remarks, appreciated TETFund Executive Secretary, for sustaining the innovation that was conceived by his predecessor, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro.
He highlighted the significant role that was played by the CVC as a body and the individual Vice Chancellors towards the success of the development and deployment of TERAS.