The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has engaged the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to monitor its projects in tertiary institutions across the country.
The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, while presenting a 30-seater bus to NANS in Abuja on Monday, said this was necessary to put contractors on check.
Echono said that the fund was also committed, through constant dialogue with NANS, to meeting students’ needs, noting that they are at the centre of any education policy.
”Education is about students and how to equip them with the right skills and knowledge to contribute to their development.
”TETFund is consulting with them to find out their needs, and with significant engagement, we want them to be our eyes in tertiary institutions.
”This is because when something is given on our campuses, we should have multiple means of getting the information we want.
”We want to identify on each campus a contact person to confirm whether our intervention is yielding fruit,” he said.
The executive secretary said that the fund also had a similar engagement with staff unions to help monitor projects on campuses with the aim of harvesting expectations.
He added that the fund would continue to work with students to improve student accommodation through Public Private Partnership (PPP) and the private sector.
He said that the donation of the bus was to address transportation issues on campuses.
Responding, the National President of NANS, Usman Barambu, commended the fund for donating the bus following their request to President Bola Tinubu a few weeks ago.
Barambu said that students don’t actually benefit directly from TETFund, and so he laid out this particular complaint, which had yielded results.
He assured the fund to put a thorough check on TETFund projects on campuses while also ensuring contractors carry out their assigned contracts dutifully.
"TETFund has been helpful to higher education.
”When we tabled our request with the president, we said to him that over 90 percent of projects executed in tertiary institutions are done by TETFund.
”We will ensure we do our best to monitor the contractors on our campuses for proper monitoring of projects.
”There should also be a disciplinary measure put in place to sanction contractors that deviate from what they are supposed to do,” he said.