PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is deeply concerned about the poor global ranking of Nigerian Universities and has expressed determination to reverse the ugly trend, the Executive secretary,Tertiary Education Trust Fund(TETFund), Professor Suleiman Bogoro,has said.
According to the Webometrics global ranking of universities in July 2021, the best university in Nigeria was the University of Ibadan and was ranked 1,196 in the World.
UI was followed by Covenant University, Ota, and was ranked 1,314 in the World, while Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), which was third in Nigeria was ranked 1,503 in the world.
However, Bogoro, while speaking at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of TETFund in Abuja, reeled out some key areas of intervention funds allocated to the beneficiary institutions, which were aimed at upgrading them to world class institutions.
Aside from the normal interventions, TETFund has, under the High Impact Projects, invested over N109 billion in public universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education to support their emergence as centres of excellence.
The Fund has also constructed multi-media teaching laboratories in 58 federal and state Colleges of Education with the rehabilitation and equipment of laboratories in 51 federal and state polytechnics as part of its commitment to making tertiary institutions in Nigeria become globally competitive in teaching, learning, research and innovation.
The Executive Secretary noted that the funds allocated were aimed at enabling the tertiary institutions become world-class institutions, thereby improving on their global ranking, a situation he said was of deep concern to President Buhari who is determined to reverse the trend.
He explained that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (formerly Education Trust Fund, ETF) was originally set up as an agency to intervene in the education sector by the Education Tax Act No.7 of 1993 as amended by Act No.40 of 1998.
He added that the Act was repealed and replaced with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act of 2011 which refocused the Fund towards the development and rehabilitation of infrastructure alongside research and development in public tertiary institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) and funded through the two per cent Education Tax introduced by the government on assessable profit of all registered companies in Nigeria.
The TETFund boss informed stakeholders at the event that the collective efforts over the past 10 years had not been in vain, noting that the intervention agency since inception, had recorded tremendous achievements in transforming the landscape of public tertiary education in Nigeria from the education tax collection remitted to the Fund.
He said: “TETFund has over the past decade provided massive support to our beneficiary institutions in Nigeria in the area of construction of physical projects.
“It is estimated that a total of over 152,838 infrastructural projects have been carried out across these institutions. These projects include lecture theatres, classrooms, hostels, offices, road networks, laboratories and fencing in some institutions in different parts of the country.
“In a conscious effort to support the capacity of lecturers in public tertiary educational institutions, the Fund created the academic staff training and development programme.”
“To date, the Fund has sponsored close to 30,000 lecturers for master’s and Ph.D programmes in both local and foreign institutions.”
Speaking further on the efforts to make Nigerian tertiary institutions globally competitive, Bogoro said: “TETFund has also been providing support for teaching practice in federal and state colleges of education across the country.
“So far, the Fund has supported over 71,263 lecturers under its Teachers’ Supervision Programme.
“Considering the vital role that libraries play in educational institutions, TETFund has also allocated substantial funds to public federal and state tertiary institutions for the acquisition of library books, e-library resources and academic manuscript development to books in order to promote and support research, teaching and learning.
“So far, the Fund has procured over 2,080,041 books for use in the libraries, 152,844 e-resources and 380,778 equipment as well as furniture were distributed across public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
“I am pleased to inform you that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, and President Muhammadu Buhari have approved that TETFund should complete the National Library which symbolises institutional repository of knowledge and research globally.”
“In 2011, the Fund launched the National Research Fund (NRF) with a seed fund of N3b as its take-off grant to support cutting edge research in areas of critical national need and development; and in 2015, N1b was added. Following the approval of TETFund Board of Trustees in 2019, the NRF allocation became annual and N5b was approved for that year.
“In 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari approved additional 50 per cent increase in allocation to the NRF, being N7.5b for that year and N8.5b in 2021.
“So far, a total sum of N9b has been accessed by lecturers to finance their research activities. A total of 457 research projects have been approved across the country, some have been completed while some are still ongoing.
“Apart from the above intervention mentioned, the Fund also allocates funds on an annual basis to support Academic Research Journals and institution Based Research (IBR) for research projects that are not more than N2Million per project across public tertiary institutions.
“So far, about 2,175 projects have been approved for Institution Based Research and 342 Academic Research Journal projects were undertaken between 2011 and 2021,” he stated.
Bogoro revealed that TETFund has been playing a significant role in COVID-19 Research in the country and drug development in general, in partnership with research institutes in the country.
According to him, at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria in 2020, the Fund in collaboration with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) formed the National COVID-19 Research Consortium (NCRC) with the secretariat located in TETFund office in Abuja.
He used the occasion to commend the chairman of TETFund Board of Trustees, Mr Kashim Ibrahim-Imam for approving the four mega research clusters with funds ranging from N250million to N450million in response to COVID-19 Vaccines and Drug Research, Security/Defense and Dairy Research and Development (R&D) in the 2021 budget.
“In 2014, I decided to take research to the next level by recommending to the Board of Trustees to approve the establishment of Department of Research and Development/Centers of Excellence in TETFund, which they graciously approved.
“Furthermore, we have introduced two new intervention lines within the period; Project Maintenance and ICT Support Interventions. The Project Maintenance Support is to enable the institutions completely renovate dilapidated buildings which have become an eyesore on the campuses while the ICT Support Intervention is for the website upgrade of institutions and for ICT training for both Teaching and Non-Teaching staff to enable them become computer proficient in the ICT world that we now live in.
“These funds allocations are aimed at enabling our tertiary institutions become World Class institutions thereby improving on their world ranking, a situation that is of deep concern to Mr. President who is determined to reverse the trend.
“To achieve this, we intend to continue working closely with regulatory bodies such as the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) to ensure that quality and standards are improved and sustained.
“We are also collaborating effectively with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to ensure that there is improvement in the education tax collections that are made available to the Fund’s benefiting institutions,” he said.
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