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The planned allocation of N6.452billion to 271 tertiary institutions in the country for this year’s intervention cycle by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will significantly revitalize the sector. The intervention, according to the agency, will strengthen critical physical infrastructure and enhance academic programmes in the country. In addition, the funds will boost research, innovation and transformation of the tertiary education sector.
President Bola Tinubu has approved the disbursement guidelines. Accordingly, the funds will be released directly to about 271 beneficiary tertiary institutions in the country. Under the initiative, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, said each benefiting university will receive N2.525billion as annual direct intervention; each polytechnic, N1.871billion; and each college of education, N2.056billion.
According to Echono, the allocation letters for the disbursement of the funds have been distributed to all the institutions. He further revealed that a total of 271 institutions will benefit from the intervention, with all the universities receiving the same amount regardless of size or number of students enrolled in the institution annually.
The primary purpose of the intervention funds is to improve infrastructure in tertiary institutions, academic programmes, research, and innovation. This will improve the standard of education in the country. Also, the funds will enhance research and integrate Tertiary Education, Research, Applications and Services (TERAS) platform into NgREN starting in 2026. The development will certainly improve tertiary education sector and enhance the quality of education in the country. It will also enhance private sector participation in research, innovation and learning.
It is commendable that the federal government has responded to the challenges facing tertiary institutions. It is hoped that this excellent gesture will be sustained to ensure that our tertiary institutions compete favourably with their counterparts across the world. In developed countries, the bedrock of government policy and national growth is research output from their universities and other tertiary institutions. In these countries, the government earmarks huge sums of money for research and the upgrade of institutional facilities.
Tertiary institutions must not exist only to award paper qualifications and push graduates into an already saturated labour market. With the current funding of tertiary institutions, the government must put the necessary mechanisms in place to ensure that tertiary institutions provide evidence and results of painstaking research. No society can make progress without adequately maximizing the potential in its tertiary institutions. If the education sector is repositioned for excellence, it will attract local and foreign investors, as well as collaboration with foreign universities. It will also make our universities very attractive to our youths and students from other countries. There is no doubt that adequately equipped academic environment with highly motivated teachers will improve the standard of our higher education.
While commending the federal government for the bold initiative, we urge it to extend the good gesture to primary and secondary schools in the country. Without addressing the funding and staffing gaps in the basic education sector and secondary school level, it will be very difficult to get it right at the tertiary education sector. With dilapidated buildings, obsolete libraries and laboratories, the neglect of the primary and secondary schools in the country is so glaring.
In fact, most primary and secondary schools in the country have been abandoned by the state governments. They now depend so much on alumni associations and other philanthropists for rehabilitation and renovation of abandoned classrooms, laboratories and libraries. The intervention of the private sector in the provision of primary and secondary education is good. However, the government must supervise them to ensure that there is quality teaching and learning in these schools. Without adequately addressing the rot in the basic and secondary education, the government will fail in its effort to enhance the quality of education in the tertiary education sector.
Above all, the beneficiaries of the intervention funds should judiciously utilise them. The government must monitor the utilisation of the funds. The corruption in public service must not be allowed to affect the use of the funds. The TETFund intervention must be progressive and continuous. That way, Nigeria’s education sector would witness accelerated development which will reflect on the quality of teaching, research and innovation. The federal government should set up an assessment committee to oversee the use of the funds by the benefiting tertiary institutions.
