The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has inaugurated three ad hoc committees tasked with upscaling skills development in the country as well as strengthening the Fund’s intervention activities.
The committees include ‘Committee on operationalisation of equipment upgrade in workshops and laboratories for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (technical)’.
Others are Committee on assessment/review of TETFund centres of excellence and Committee on operationalisation of skills development special intervention.
Speaking at the inauguration of the committees, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, charged the members to ensure that the various skills facilities were put to use for effective operations.
Echono noted that the promotion of skills development was one of the priority areas of government to address the prevailing challenges of youth unemployment and prevalence of poverty in the society.
He explained that the Fund made provisions under the 2024 intervention for the upgrade of equipment in workshops and laboratories for Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (Technical).
According to him, to ensure effective implementation of the intervention, the Fund constituted an Advisory Committee chaired by Prof Hayward Babale to advise on the operationalisation of the upgrade of equipment in workshops and laboratories of the institutions.
He said the committee was tasked with the reference of assessing the state of workshops and laboratories in target institutions including equipment and other facilities in use.
On the committee on assessment/review of TETFund centres of excellence, Echono said the Fund under the 2024 Intervention made provision for the upgrade of the most performing centres.
“Consequently, the Fund considered it expedient to constitute an Ad hoc Committee chaired by Prof. Oyewale Tomori to assess and review the performance and progress of the Centres in the Universities in line with their specific mandate.
“The Terms of Reference for the Committee include assessing performance of the existing TETFund Centres of Excellence hosted in universities based on their given mandates and areas of specialisation, among others.”
The TETFund boss also said that the Fund was committed to the promotion of skills development, hence provision was made for skill development programme in Polytechnics under the Fund’s Special Interventions.
He said consequent upon this, the Fund constituted an advisory Committee chaired by Prof Idris Bugaje, the Executive Secretary of NBTE, to advice on the modalities for the operationalisation of the Skills Development Special Intervention.
He charged the committee to assess the present state of Skills Development Programmes in Polytechnics based on the entrepreneurship and skills development policy of government.
The committees were tasked to submit their reports within six weeks from the day they were constituted.
Responding, the Chairman, Committee on operationalisation of skills development special intervention, Prof Idris Bugaje, commended the Fund for investing in skills development.
“The three committees are very important because skills cut across all of them. In the past, polytechnics are behaving like ivory towers doing what universities are doing. This is not right, we are complimentary to universities.
“We have specific roles to play and the role is the provision of skills. We must train our own and use them,” he said.
