… As 137 scholars abscond

The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFfund), Sonny Echono has said the agency is working with British universities’ Vice-Chancellors to ensure return of its scholars who absconded after their studies abroad.

He revealed this yesterday in Abuja while hosting a delegation of British universities’ Vice-Chancellors led by UK Education Champion, Sir Steve Smith.

Appearing before a House of Representatives adhoc panel in July this year, Echono had expressed concern that over 137 students sponsored abroad by the Fund had absconded.

On the visit by the United Kingdom universities’ dons, the Executive Secretary said it served as an avenue for stakeholders to explore opportunities for a mutually beneficial higher education partnerships between the UK and Nigerian universities, in the best interest of the collaborating parties.

“You are aware that we have been in the news for the wrong reasons about some of our scholars that go abroad and will not return. And it is thorough partnership like this that will ensure that those scholars we sponsor must return back home to put in their quota in national development. It will make it impossible for them to stay back.

“We are even looking at institutional ways of doing that. I talked about co-location for example. We are even seeing that where partnerships already exist between our institution and those abroad, we can share the period of the training and ensure that they complete that training back home. That way, the question of not coming will not arise,” he told the delegation.

The TETFund boss also disclosed that plans have reached advanced stage to set up four multi-disciplinary laboratories across the country.
This, he emphasized, will fill the void of infrastructural deficit in public tertiary institutions.
Echono described as embarrassing, situations where researches are prolonged in the country due to lack of equipment.

Be said: “We also feel that we need to put a governance structure in place that will make them self-sustaining in longer term. Because we have the embarrassing situation where sometimes researches are prolonged because specific equipment are not available. It is still at final planning stage. The designs have been approved. Locations will be approved in the next voupke of weeks, The budget is already in place for that. And we are already discussing with some companies in the UK, particularly in terms of the equipment for those laboratories.

Earlier, UK Government International Education Champion and Head of the UK Government’s High-Level Education Delegation to Nigeria, Sir Steve Smith called for deeper education research relationship between both countries.