Deconstructing non-performing TETFund centres of excellence

BY TERSOO ADAGHER

This may not be the best time for some centres of excellence, established by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), who have failed to live up to expectations as the federal government is set to stop further funding of such centres.

This was disclosed at the recent presentation of reports of the adhoc committees on the assessment/review of TETFUND Centres of Excellence and Operationalization of Skills Development Special Intervention to Nigeria’s Honourable Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman in Abuja.

According to the Minister, TETFUND will discontinue the funding of non-performing Centres of Excellence with the warning that the government will not reward indolence by giving free money to beneficiary Institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.

His words “government is encouraging our scholars to simply rise to the occasion and deliver on their scholarship as World Class Scholars do. We are not going to reward indolence. We cannot be giving money to beneficiary institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do”.

“In terms of skills, we want to raise the equipment level of all tertiary institutions in the country so that they can provide all the skills that we need in Nigeria to the highest quantity that can service the country and internationally”.

Presenting the report of the Adhoc Committee for the Assessment and Review of TETFUND Centres of Excellence to the Honourable Minister, Professor Oyewale Tomori said the Committee visited different institutions where they had on-the-spot assessment of these institutions and top on the list of the Committee’s recommendation is that no of the twenty seven (27) Centres of Excellence, established by TETFUND deserves an upgrade.

Professor Tomori however suggested that since most of the Centres failed to effectively utilize the first seed grants given to them for the required initial infrastructure at their various Centers, government should work towards providing them with bailout funds to get them working.

His words “it was generally agreed that many of the Centres do not Kno why they were established. For the Centres that are doing well, we recommend additional funding for them. We couldn’t find any Centre that met the standard for upgrading”.

He also called on TETFUND to always ensure that funds for the Centres of Excellence are disbursed directly to the Centres, citing instances of funds not reaching the right places. “funds for the Centres Shou be disbursed and when disbursement is done, TETFUND should go there and examine what exactly happened. There are complaints in some of the beneficiary institutions we visited that the funds did not reach the right places. We have some university management that did not create an enabling environment for the Centres to run”.

“If these Centres are to achieve the set objectives, TETFUND in collaboration with institutions hosting the Centres should ensure that the Directors of the Centres are on full-time appointment while publications coming from the Centres meet high quality international journals”.

While calling for the need to do a proper check, since it appears that a lot of institutions are yet understand the essence of setting up the Centres, Prof. Tomori added that those Centres that are not performing well should be given some kind of moratorium so that they can refocus towards achieving their mandates and in an event that they still dont perform to expectation, TETFUND should simply cancel their funding, stating that there is no need wasting resources on institutions that will not yield results.

He further advised that moving forward, future selection of TETFUND Centres of Excellence should be based on the Agency’s advertising request where applications from will be submitted and considered, stressing that by doing so, institutions will have to apply for the establishment of Centres where they will place some kind of value to it.

Presenting the report from the Advisory Committee on Operationalization of Skills Development Special Intervention, Dr. Nuru Yakubu said if we must reduce the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria, we must take deliberate steps to boost our informal and skills-based sector.

“A key component of this presentation is the role of the skills-based sector. It is now downing on every stakeholder that the infomal sector in Nigeria in terms of skills development is the key thing”.

“Over 90% of employment in this country comes from the informal sector. Over 100 million, most of them are young and that is the target group that government needs to identify for support. It is globally accepted that for any economic development and progress to take place in countries or economies where you have a very large percentage of informal sector, you need to formalize it”.

“What we saw at the panteka market in Kaduna State made me to feel that it is not just a market but a small industry and i suggest that we should channel our money to panteka industries because that is what they are “.

“There are people who are involved in small skills and all they need is just a small push and I must say that this is one of the ways that we can develop our country and bring unemployment rate to the barest minimum”.

While reiterating the consensus to discontinue spending of huge sums on non-performing TETFUND Centres of Excellence, the! Executive Secretary/CEO of TETFUND, Arc. Sonny Echono regretted that most of the Centres have not even accessed their funds from inception.

He maintained that part of the terms of reference given to the Adhoc Committees was for them to ensure that they come up with a very factual assessment and critical review of performance by these Centres, stating that recommendations from the two Committees as presented will be fully implemented.

Echono informed that it was in line with the implementation of the 2024 intervention guidelines as approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that the Committees made up of academics, experts and;;; specialists from beneficiary institutions were constituted which further gave rise to the need for a renewed focus and also to ensure the effective delivery of entrepreneurship activities from these Centres to reposition and refocus them for optimal performance.

He said TETFUND will ensure that these Centres of Excellence meet the objectives with which they were established and to provide the necessary reviews of their operations that will guide the intervention.

Tersoo, a critic and public affairs analyst can be reached via: [email protected]