The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has lamented that some governors have abdicated responsibilities to tertiary institutions in their states to the agency.
This is even as the intervention agency has pledged support to the newly established College of Education (Technical) in Bauchi State.
TETFund Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono, stated this when he received Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed who was on a working visit to his office, in Abuja.
He explained that although the agency had the core mandate of providing funding for public educational facilities and infrastructural developments across the country, some governors establish new tertiary institutions and leave the responsibility of funding them solely to TETFund. He, however, lauded the Bauchi State Governor for standing out among his peers.
“Unfortunately, there are some of your colleagues who have almost abandoned their responsibilities to their schools. And when they establish institutions they look forward to only TETFund to help them fund them.
“But this is not the case in Bauchi. Each time we go to Bauchi to commission TETFund projects, we are impressed to see the complementary infrastructure,” he said.
While lauding the efforts of the governor in establishing the new higher institution, the Executive Secretary assured the governor that the agency would give maximum support to the institution, like all other public tertiary institutions in the country.
His words: “The new institution that has come on board – the one on education technical – is very important. Because finding teachers on technical subjects at the basic level has been a challenge. And you will not only be producing for Bauchi alone but indeed for the entire North East region.
“So I will be advising my Director to liaise with the Commissioner for Higher Education so we do the formalities of enlistment and begin to support that,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Senator Mohammed said that the aim of his visit was to brief the Executive Secretary on the establishment of the new tertiary institution and seek the agency’s support for its rapid development.
He called on TETFUND and relevant international organisations to assist in the development of the new institution.
“We have established so many tertiary institutions, the recent one being College of Education (Technical) that will train the human capital that we need not just certificates.
“But for our state university, colleges of education and others, TETFund has done so much. I will not be an Oliver Twist to be asking too much but certainly we have no option. We have declared an emergency on education,” he said.
