How to achieve quality varsity education, by TETFUND

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) has said for Nigeria to achieve the fundamental objectives of education as envisioned in the national education policy, the challenge militating against quality tertiary education must be tackled with a sense of urgency.

The agency said the challenges include inadequate funding, frequent industrial action, cultism, brain drain, insecurity, poor leadership, inadequate quality teaching staff, and poor policy implementation.

Speaking in his lecture titled: ‘University Autonomy and the Challenge of Quality Tertiary Education in Nigeria’, during the ninth convocation of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE), at the weekend, the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Sonny Echono, noted that a combination of inadequate infrastructure and limited number of academic staff, in both private and public universities, translates to limited spaces for admission.
 
According to him, the impact of the rapidly expanding private universities has been quite negligible, as they collectively account for only seven per cent of the students’ population, and rely heavily on public universities for part-time and adjunct lecturers.
 
He said: “A mismatch between effective demand and the available space for admission further compounds the situation. The problem of inadequate funding of tertiary education is the most critical challenge that has continued to threaten the attainment of good quality higher education in Nigeria.
 
“Except for the intervention of TETFund, many tertiary institutions in Nigeria were finding it difficult to build classrooms and lecture halls, equip laboratories and workshops, and provide research grants to their academic staff.”

Fasina said FUOYE had successfully cultivated 15 hectares of palm oil plantations, five hectares of pineapples, 10 hectares of cassava and 15 hectares of maize, noting that the initiative had positioned agriculture as a strategic driver of the university’s economic growth.
 
He said within the four years of his administration, no fewer than 57 academic staff have been promoted to the rank of professor, 115 others as associate professors, while 106 got elevated to senior lecturers.
 
One of the honourees and former Attorney General of the Federation, Kanu Agabi said Nigeria can never attain the greatness that other nations have achieved by simply sitting down and enjoying the luxuries they provide.
  
In his remarks, the Pro Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, challenged the Faculties of Engineering and Physics to develop home-grown electricity that could serve the entire university.