THE Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono has disclosed that the Fund has earmarked a sum of N25 billion for the upgrade of equipment in laboratories and workshops in public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education across the country.
He said this was captured in the 2024 intervention budget of the agency in view of the decay in the research facilities across the beneficiary institutions.
He said the findings have revealed that the equipment in the laboratories and workshops in beneficiary institutions are obsolete, inadequate or underutilised.
Echono made this known in Abuja, during the inauguration of the three ad hoc committees with the task of upscaling skill development in the country as well as strengthening the Fund’s intervention activities.
The committees are: Committee on operationalisation of equipment upgrade in workshops and laboratories for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (technical); Committee on assessment/review of TETFund centres of excellence and Committee on operationalisation of skills development special intervention.
Echono said: “You will recall that in 2022, we undertook a national survey to assess the availability, functionality, and compatibility of all existing research facilities across our beneficiary institutions in relation to contemporary requirements and global best practices.”
Echono noted that the promotion of skills development was one of the priority areas of the government to address the prevailing challenges of youth unemployment and prevalence of poverty in our society.
He commended the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for making deliberate efforts to improve skill development in Nigerian polytechnics by formalising the informal apprenticeship training through the National Skills Qualification framework (NSOF).
He added that in consonance with the Fund’s commitment to the promotion of skill development, provision was made for skills development programmes in polytechnics under the Fund’s Special Interventions.
“In line with the Fund’s commitment to deepen its content-based interventions and facilitate the institutionalisation of research and development, concerted efforts are being made to identify more innovative ways to enhance research capacities of our beneficiary institutions and promote skills development for our teeming youths.
“Modern economic development process continues to depend on increased productivity arising from purposeful and problem-solving research. It has been acknowledged that no society can succeed without adequate research infrastructure facilities to support innovative research for solving societal problems,” he said.
According to him, to ensure effective implementation of the intervention, the Fund constituted an advisory committee chaired by Professor Hayward Babale to advise on the functionality of the upgrade of equipment in workshops and laboratories of the institutions.
He said the committee was tasked with the reference of assessing the state of workshops and laboratories in the target institutions including equipment and other facilities in use.
On the ‘Committee on assessment/review of TETFund centres of excellence,’ Echono said the Fund under the 2024 intervention made provision for the upgrade of the most performing centres.
“Consequently, the Fund considered it expedient to constitute an Ad hoc Committee chaired by Professor Oyewale Tomori to assess and review the performance and progress of the centres in the universities in line with their specific mandate.
“The terms of reference for the committee include assessing performance of the existing TETFund Centres of Excellence hosted in universities based on their given mandates and areas of specialisation, among others.
The TETFund boss also said that the Fund was committed to the promotion of skills development; hence provision was made for skills development programmes in Polytechnics under the Fund’s special interventions.
He said consequently, the Fund constituted an advisory committee chaired by, the executive secretary of NBTE, Professor Idris Bugaje, to advise on the modalities for the operationalisation of the skills development special intervention.
He charged the committee to assess the present state of skills development programmes in Polytechnics based on the entrepreneurship and skills development policy of the government.
He also urged the committee to harvest and determine skills development priorities as well as gathering of complementary resources, expertise needed for technical development and industrial growth.
Echono, however, commended President Bola Tinubu for approving the 2024 intervention budget of the Fund in which these activities were encapsulated.
He, therefore, tasked the committee to submit their reports within six weeks from the day they were constituted for upward development of the country.
Responding, the chairman, Committee on operationalisation of skills development special intervention, ProfessorBugaje commended the fund for investing in skills development saying that “in this lies the future of the youths.”
“The three committees are very important because skills cut across all of them. In the past, polytechnics were behaving like ivory towers doing what universities are doing. This is not right, we are complimentary to universities.
“We have specific roles to play and the role is the provision of skills. We must train our own and use them.