The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, says the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will stop the funding of any Centre of Excellence due to non-performance
The Minister gave the indication in Abuja, Nigeria, while receiving two reports of TETFund’s ad hoc committees on Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence and Operationalisation of Skills Development Special Intervention.
He said the government would not continue to reward indolence by giving free money to Centre of Excellence which was established across Nigeria eight years ago and are not doing what they are supposed to do.
“The government is encouraging our scholars to simply rise to the occasion and deliver on their scholarship, what world-class scholars do; and we are not going to reward indolence. We can’t be giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.
“In terms of the skills, we want to raise the equipment level of those institutions, polytechnic, and others so that they can provide all the skill set that we need in Nigeria in the highest quality that can service the country and internationally,” he said.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, said the fund would not continue to throw money away to centers that are not living up to expectations adding that the strategy for establishing centers of excellence was a very good one because TETFund realized that it didn’t have enough resources to improve all the facilities of all public institutions at the same time.
“The idea was to incubate, to have one center, the right equipment, the right tools, the right faculty, and experts, that would lead our efforts in research, in promoting scholarship at the highest level so that they can also inspire other centers.
“We are going to be pooling from other institutions within the area who want to do further research or who want to carry out any other exploratory study in those particular fields in those areas,” he said.
According to him, some of the centers have done fantastically well since inception, stating that a lot of them are doing innovations.
“Sokoto just came up with one major solution for us. For example, they were the ones that discovered this vaccine for Covid, in partnership with other institutions. Now we are also in the process of getting vaccines for Lassa fever and so many others.
“So, some are doing very well and some have come up with prototypes that we are now hoping to take to industries so that they begin to produce these goods and services,” he said.
On the non-performing institutions.
“If you were established five years ago and you are still in your infancy, you have not been able to provide modern laboratories, facilities for scholars to come and learn, we want to know why. But we don’t want to be arbitrary.”
He further disclosed that: “TETFund decided to look at some institutions to find out their relative positions in terms of the quality of their faculty, their reputation in certain courses and certain areas and designated them as centers of excellence for those particular courses.”
The Committee on the Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence, led by Prof Oyewale Tomori, in its report noted that most centers did not utilize their first seed grant of N150 million for the initial infrastructures required in the centers.
He advised TETFund to provide some bailout funds to the centers to enable the proper take-off of the centers.
The committee also called on the fund to ensure that all funds for the Centre of Excellence are disbursed directly to the Centre of Excellence account.
“if the Centres are to achieve set objectives, TETFund in collaboration with institutions hosting the centres should ensure that Centre Directors are on full-time assignment at the Centre.
“All Centres that are not performing well should be given six (6) six-month moratorium as a way to prevail on them to refocus and achieve their true mandate after which a revisit will be conducted to determine their status and continue funding,” the committee recommended.
The Chairman of the Committee, Advisory Committee on Operationalisation of TETFund Skills Development Special Intervention, Dr. Nuru Yakubu, while presenting report said the committee recommended polytechnics for TETFund Special Intervention according to zones.
“South-West: the five schools visited have shown preparedness except for the Polytechnic Ibadan because of the school leadership transition. It is therefore recommended that in 2024 the following two polytechnics should benefit; Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State and Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State for 2025 the committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State and The Polytechnic Ibadan, if they can sort out their preparations.
“South-South: The committee recommends Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Rimuola, Rivers State, and Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic Ikot Osunaa for 2024 TETFund Special Intervention. For the year 2025, the committee recommends Delta State Polytechnic and another polytechnic be identified.
“South-East: The Institute of Management & Technology has been recommended for 2024 and for 2025, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba and Federal Polytechnic, Oko.
“North-East: The committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri for 2024 Intervention and Adamawa State Polytechnic and Tatari Ali Polytechnic for 2025.
“North-West: 2024 Birnin Kebbi, Daura for 2025 Kano State Poly, Sokoto State Poly and North-Central: 2024 Nasarawa and for 2025 Lokoja and Ilorin.” He added
