The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it has earmarked N1billion for hostels construction in 12 institutions under the Fund’s 2024 intervention cycle through the Public Private Partnership arrangements.
The Executive Secretary of the Fund, Sonny Echono, disclosed this at a One-Day Workshop on ‘Emerging Areas of Students Needs in Beneficiary Institutions’, in Abuja on Tuesday.
Echono 12 institutions (six universities, three Polytechnics, and three Colleges of Education) were identified and selected to benefit from a ₦1 billion allocation.
He said the money would be utilised as equity contribution in partnership with private developers to construct hostels in these selected institutions.
” I am pleased to inform you that the Africa Plus Partners in partnership with Akwa Ibom State University, will launch the construction of a 1, 600 capacity student hostel through the support of TETFund on May 15,” he said.
Echono also said that the Fund is taking a closer look into some of the age-old problems facing many institutions in the face of scarce resources, one of such issues he said was students’ accommodation on the various campuses.
According to him, many of our students are either congested in the dormitories across campuses or living and studying outside the school environment.
“The existing hostels are not only grossly inadequate but most of them are in deplorable conditions especially with regard to functional utility and sanitation. This definitely will affect the performance and wellbeing of these students.
“The Fund and the government have tried over the years to build student hostels across the country but the government appears overstretched and unable to meet the ever-increasing number of students enrolling into the various institutions annually.
“As a result of this, we have at several fora advocated the consideration and involvement of the private sector under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to provide solutions to the student accommodation crises across institutions,” he said.
He also specified that repositioning of the teaching profession and the teaching practice intervention that the Fund had consistently made available to supervisors was another area of concern of the Fund.
According to him, teaching practice provides experiences to supervisors and student teachers in-real time in the teaching environment and provides an opportunity for supervisors and student-teachers to practice the art of teaching before they become real teachers.
“This helps to perfect their ability and potentials in pedagogy. It enables supervisors and student-teachers to discover their weaknesses and strengths in the classroom and provides the opportunity to hone and improve their abilities.
” Teaching practice enables supervisors and student-teachers to develop positive attitude towards the teaching profession among several other important reasons. This is why the teaching practice intervention has remained a relevant intervention area of the Fund.
He, however, said the Fund recently received a communication from the Federal Ministry of Education regarding the Presidential directive to TETFund on the support of teaching practice and the recommendations of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission regarding the teaching practice allowance.
He said there is therefore need to rework the teaching practice funding template currently in use as the methodology employed in the computation of the allowance by the Fund and that of the Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission appeared to be different. (NAN)