Private tertiary institutions should not be left at a disadvantage simply due to the nature of their establishment. Truly, many private institutions appear essentially as public-spirited and are driven by the altruism to see education in Nigeria reach global standards of excellence. It would be more befitting if the Fund’s criteria for the award of grants could include privately owned institutions. It has become a thing of intrigue and interest to wonder why Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) only focuses its interventions on federal and state educational institutions, despite its name denoting it as a “Tertiary Education Trust Fund, which ought not to entertain any discrimination in its application.
Apart from that, all through successive governments in the country, there has been the starvation of funds to public universities, in a manner that has resulted in the fall in standards of these institutions or even their near extinction. Nevertheless, private institutions have maintained safer learning environments and innovative syllabuses that are taught in record time without disruption to the academic session by strikes. Private institutions have decent welfare packages for staff and decent on-campus accommodation and utilities for students. Even then, this does not automatically imply that private institutions are overflowing with money or that they are essentially owned and controlled by the affluent. It should also be noted that funding for TetFund comes from 2 percent of tax remits from private companies in Nigeria, so why shouldn’t private institutions benefit from the Fund foundation?
Therefore, I urge the Federal Government and the governing council of TETFund to look into this and make all tertiary institutions in Nigeria benefit from TETFund resources.
Boluwatife Omole, Osogbo, Osun State
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