Education

FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

Published

2 weeks ago

May 4, 2024

Professor Tahir Mamman, Minister of Education

FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

The federal government has said the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will defund any non-performing centre of excellence it established eight years ago.

Professor Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, said the government will not continue to reward indolence by giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.

The minister spoke 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.

“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 skill, 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.

On his part, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, said the fund will not continue to throw money away to centres that are not living up to expectations.

Echono disclosed that some centres have funds with TETFund that they have not accessed since inception.

“The funds are with us because we have not released until you reach a milestone, but while they have delayed in reaching those milestones, are causes of concerns.

The TETFund boss noted that the strategy for establishing centres of excellence was a very good one because TETFund realised that it didn’t have enough resources to improve all the facilities of all public institutions at the same time.

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“The idea was to incubate, to have one centre, 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 centres.

“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.

He said some of the centres 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 now hoping to take to industries so that they begin to produce these goods and services,” he said.

On the non-performing institutions, he said, “If you were established five years ago and you are still at 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.

“So, it 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 in certain areas and designated them as centres of excellence for those particular courses.

Earlier, the Committee on the Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence, led by Prof Oyewale Tomori, in its report, decline to recommend any centre for upgrade

The report noted that most centres did not utilise their first seed grant of N150 million for the initial infrastructures required in the centres, and advised TETFund to provide some bail out funds to the centres to enable the proper take off of the centres.

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.

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“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 months 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.

Also presenting the Report of the Advisory Committee on Operationalisation of TETFund Skills Development Special Intervention, the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Nuru Yakubu, 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 to be identified

“South-East: The Institute of Management and 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.

FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

Related Topics:Tertiary Institutions TETFUND

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Education

FG fixes May 24 to open student loan portal

Published

16 hours ago

May 17, 2024

Trends Admin

FG fixes May 24 to open student loan portal

The Federal Government through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) says the application portal for students’ loan scheme will open on 24th May 2024.

This is contained in a statement signed by Nasir Ayitogo -Media and Public Relations Lead of NELFUND, on Thursday.

He said the move marks a significant milestone in the commitment of President Bola Tinubu to fostering accessible and inclusive education for all Nigerian students.

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The statement reads in full : “The management of Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) led by its Managing Director, Mr Akintunde Sawyerr are thrilled to announce 24th of May, 2024 as official date for the opening of portal for student loan applications.

This marks a significant milestone in the commitment of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) to fostering accessible and inclusive education for all Nigerian students.

Through the portal, students can now access loans to pursue their academic aspirations without financial constraints.

The portal provides a user-friendly interface for students to submit their loan applications conveniently.

We encourage all eligible students to take advantage of this opportunity to invest in their future and contribute to the growth and development of our nation.

Students can access the portal on www.nelf.gov.ng to begin application.

For more information and assistance, please contact NELFUND via email on info@nelf.gov.ng or contact us via our social media handles.”

FG fixes May 24 to open student loan portal

Education

UK varsities considering NECO results for admission – Registrar

Published

2 days ago

May 16, 2024

Trends Admin

Registrar of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi

UK varsities considering NECO results for admission – Registrar

The Registrar of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, said foreign universities like Lead University and Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom have reached out to the council for information on its examinations.

He said these universities are considering admitting Nigerian students based on their NECO results, indicating a level of credibility and acceptance of NECO’s outcomes by international institutions.

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Speaking during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja Wednesday, Prof. Wushishi said NECO has met the demands of Birmingham City University, and they are currently working on fulfilling the request from Lead University.

Regarding digitalisation and the potential migration to Computer-Based Testing (CBT), Prof. Wushishi acknowledged the complexity of NECO examinations, particularly with close to 1.5 million students taking exams in 76 different subjects and over 150 different papers annually for admissions into tertiary institutions.

This complexity, he said, poses challenges for an immediate shift to CBT, unlike other examination bodies like JAMB that primarily use multiple-choice formats.

UK varsities considering NECO results for admission – Registrar

Education

JAMB releases another 36,540 UTME results

Published

3 days ago

May 15, 2024

Trends Admin

JAMB releases another 36,540 UTME results

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has released additional 36,540 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results withheld for further investigation.

This was in addition to the 531 results released the previous week, bringing the total results released to 1,879,437.

This is contained in a statement by the Public Communication Advisor of the Board, Dr Fabian Benjamin on Tuesday in Abuja.

The Board also dismissed a letter by an alleged fraudster the outstanding 2024 UTME results, subjected to scrutiny by experts, had been compromised on account of a cyber security breach for which it is considering rescheduling the examination.

The statement reads: “In another development, the attention of the Board was drawn to a fictitious letter concocted by a fraudster and circulated on social media purporting to emanate from the Board stating that the outstanding 2024 UTME results, currently being subjected to intense scrutiny by its team of experts, had been compromised on account of a cyber security breach and that it is considering rescheduling the examination.

“This is far from the truth as the said letter did not emanate from the Board. In fact, a closer look at the letter, which was not signed by any person, lacked every ingredient of a letter from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board. The letter is, therefore, from those, who wish to destroy the integrity of the Board, by compromising its unassailable operational processes to mislead hapless candidates with the sole aim of extorting them.

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“The Board reiterated, for the umpteenth time, that the results of its 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and other previous years are intact, not in any cloud storage and can, therefore, not be hacked by anybody.

“It is to be recalled that at the release of the 2024 UTME, the Board had announced that some results had been withheld as they were being subjected to further investigation. Out of these, 531 results were released recently. Others found to be involved in any examination misconduct are still undergoing investigation as the Board would want to review all the footage of all CCTV cameras placed in all its accredited centres to ascertain the candidate’s culpability or otherwise.

“At the conclusion of this exercise, the Board would publish its findings. Therefore, the public is urged to be wary of misleading information emanating from sources not linked to the Board be it religious or other sources.

“Equally disturbing is the misleading comments of some functionaries of some private institutions, who are linking the Board with “the prevailing low ‘cut-off marks’when in practice, it was their institutions that had submitted lower minimum minimum admissible scores marks, even lower than what other institutions had presented.

“For the purpose of clarity, minimum admissible scores are first presented by individual institutions before such are debated to arrive at a benchmark agreed upon by all Heads of Institutions across the country at its annual Policy Meeting on Admissions and which no institution would be allowed to compromise.

“Also, the Board would also like to urge religious organisations to stick to their primary roles and not dabble into areas outside their calling as there are reports of some religious organisations making false representation to government at various levels for selfish ends.”