Ifeanyi Ibe
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it will adopt the “Public Private Partnership” model to improve students’ accommodation challenges in institutions across the nation.
This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Sonny Echono, on Monday, in Abuja, during the presentation of a 30-seater bus to the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
Join our WhatsApp Channel“The fund would continue to work with students to improve on students’ accommodation through Public Private Partnership and the private sector,” he said. TETFund Begins Work At Fed. Polytechnic Ohodo, Enugu
In addition, Echono said TETFund will engage the NANS to monitor its projects in tertiary institutions across the nation, noting that it will constantly dialogue with the association to meet the needs of students because they are at the centre of its policies.
He said, ”Education is about students and how to equip them with the right skills and knowledge to contribute to development.
”TETFund is consulting with them to find out their needs and with significant engagement, we want them to be our eyes in tertiary institutions.
”This is because when something is given on our campuses, we should have multiple aids to getting the information we want. We want to identify in each campus a contact person to confirm whether our intervention is yielding fruit.”
Echono further stated that the fund also has a similar policy target with staff unions to help monitor projects on campuses.
In his response, the National President of NANS, Usman Barambu, commended the fund for donating the bus following their request to President Bola Tinubu a few weeks ago. NANS Pledges Support For Fuel Subsidy Removal, Student Loan Act
Barambu said that students don’t actually benefit directly from TETFund and so laid this particular complaint which had yielded results.
He assured the fund of thorough monitoring of projects on campuses while also ensuring contractors carry out their assigned contracts dutifully.
”TETFund has been helpful to higher education. When we tabled our request with the president, we said to him that over 90 per cent of projects executed in tertiary institutions is done by TETFund.
”We will ensure we do our best to monitor the contractors in our campuses for proper monitoring of projects.
”There should also be a disciplinary measure put in place to sanction contractors that deviate from what they are supposed to do,” Barambu said.
