By Chinyere Nwachukwu
Lagos – Prof. Daniel Aina, a member of Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigeria, has advised the Federal Government to revisit the issue of extending Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) intervention to private universities.
Aina, who is the Vice-Chancellor, Caleb University, Imota in Lagos State, made the appeal while featuring on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Monday in Lagos.
According to him, it is only logical to extend the TETFUND grants to private universities too since their graduates also contribute their quota to national development.
“We are saying that we train our children for manpower development of the entire country, Africa and the world.
“So, if private entities are the ones that provide the funding that constitute TETFUND, why prevent any Nigerian, wherever they might have studied, from benefitting?’’
He said no private university was asking that TETFUND should be given to pay salaries or any overhead cost.
“If you go to other climes, for instance, you may want to ask why countries like Finland and Sweden are giving private universities in Nigeria grants to carry out researches on malaria.
“Are we going to administer these malaria drugs in Finland?
“So, why are Nigerian government and people finding it difficult to say TETFUND should, for instance, fund ICT deployment to enable every Nigerian to get access to the online facility provided for all universities from one single hub?’’
Aina said it was worrisome that the Federal Government did not consider private universities as part of the institutions that should benefit from TETFUND.
According to him, the entire universities in the country are working toward achieving a common goal.
“When you give out grants with intention to solving a common problem, be sure that such gesture has a way of paying back.
“Foreign governments or organisations who do not have anything to do with Nigeria and Africa donate money to private universities to do research for problems that are located here, which might not even be useful to them.
“This is because they know when you help people to carry out research and find solutions to human challenges, it will help their own system too,’’ the VC said.
According to him, the private universities are not asking that TETFUND should be given to neither pay salaries nor ask for money to construct hostels.
“All we ask is for TETFUND to make money available to us to set up state-of-the-art libraries, funds to encourage research that might come up with solutions to national challenges and therefore benefit humanity.’’
He said that the proposal to construct the 4th Mainland Bridge in Lagos was taking too long to materialise
This, according to him, is as a result of lack of push to execute the project.
Aina said that with little encouragement to universities “there are persons who can come up with architectural designs that will ease transportation challenges in the state”.
“There are scholars who can also carry out research on how to tackle the cases of building collapse in Lagos.’’
According to him, encouraging staff exchange programmes too is another key area where private universities can benefit from TETFUND intervention. (NAN)