The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has called on universities and other tertiary institutions to explore public-private partnerships, PPPs, to tackle accommodation shortages, improve campus infrastructure and reduce pressure on limited public resources.
The Fund disclosed that fewer than half of students in Nigerian tertiary institutions currently reside on their campuses, exposing many to security risks associated with commuting long distances to attend lectures and access academic facilities.
TETFund Executive Secretary, Arc. Sonny Echono, made this known on Wednesday in Abuja at a strategic meeting with heads of beneficiary institutions, chairmen of governing councils and bursars.
He said the Fund was pursuing different approaches to expand student accommodation, including direct hostel construction and collaboration with private investors, to provide safer and more accessible residential facilities.
Echono explained that the accommodation challenge was particularly concerning for students who had to travel considerable distances to attend evening lectures, conduct research or use institutional facilities outside regular academic hours.
He said the proposed PPP framework would enable institutions to develop additional hostel facilities without shouldering the entire financial responsibility for their construction and management.
Under the arrangement, he explained, participating institutions would provide land within their campuses, while TETFund would handle the counterpart funding and private-sector partners would undertake the development and management of the facilities.
“Your requirement is to make the land available on your campus. Full stop,” he said, encouraging institutional administrators and governing councils to take advantage of the initiative.
The TETFund chief expressed concern over the limited enthusiasm shown by some institutions towards the hostel development programme, describing it as an opportunity that should attract greater commitment from university authorities.
He stressed that the partnership model could also be extended beyond student accommodation to other commercially viable ventures capable of improving campus life and generating additional revenue for institutions.
Such opportunities, he said, included shopping centres, pharmacies, commercial agricultural ventures and other essential services that could be developed through private-sector investment.
Echono noted that the increasing cost of infrastructure development, inflation and global economic uncertainties had made it necessary for institutions to consider alternative funding arrangements, particularly as government resources faced competing demands.
He said escalating prices of construction materials and other economic pressures were affecting project estimates, implementation schedules and the overall delivery of TETFund-funded interventions.
The Executive Secretary also urged tertiary institutions to accelerate the adoption of digital education, warning that the sector could not afford to lag behind in the use of technology to improve teaching, research and learning.
He expressed dissatisfaction with the slow utilisation of the Fund’s digital learning platform, TERAS, noting that many beneficiary institutions were yet to take full advantage of the opportunities it provided.
According to him, the platform would support flexible and hybrid learning arrangements, enabling students to attend lectures and access academic materials remotely without necessarily being physically present in classrooms.
“We should embrace technology and not fear it,” Echono said, urging university managements and governing councils to invest in building the digital capacity of both lecturers and students.
He disclosed that TETFund expected more than 60 per cent of academic staff in beneficiary institutions to acquire the competence required to deliver teaching and learning through digital platforms.
He further called for a change in institutional attitudes towards emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, arguing that universities should focus on managing its risks while exploiting its potential benefits.
While recognising the possibility of students using AI tools for academic misconduct, Echono said institutions should establish effective safeguards rather than reject the technology altogether.
He also revealed that the Fund was transitioning its intervention processes to digital platforms, adding that beneficiary institutions had been given adequate time and assistance to adjust to the new system.
To facilitate the transition, he said TETFund had organised capacity-building programmes and provided access to extensive digital learning resources, including more than 400 libraries, to support academic activities across beneficiary institutions.
He urged institutional authorities to ensure that lecturers, researchers and students actively used the available facilities, stressing that maintaining such resources required substantial public investment.
“If you don’t use it, it is a waste of our national resource,” he warned.
Echono explained that the annual strategic engagement with beneficiary institutions was designed to review the implementation of existing interventions, evaluate performance and identify priority areas for the following year.
He said the meeting, which usually takes place between October and November, also provided an avenue for institutions to offer feedback, identify shortcomings in ongoing programmes and recommend interventions that required adjustment, improvement or discontinuation.
He equally emphasised the importance of constructive working relationships between governing councils and principal officers, particularly in matters relating to procurement procedures and the execution of TETFund-sponsored projects.
Meanwhile, the National Universities Commission (NUC) has commended TETFund for its sustained contributions to the development of university education in Nigeria, urging beneficiary institutions to ensure transparency and accountability in the utilisation of intervention funds.
The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu, represented by the Director of Research and Innovation, Mallam Faruk Mohammed, acknowledged the Fund’s role in strengthening the university system.
He emphasised the need for institutions to prioritise students’ safety, improve accommodation and ensure that resources allocated to them translated into tangible improvements in the quality of education.
Similarly, the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Chris Piwuna, acknowledged TETFund’s interventions, describing them as significant contributions to the improvement of teaching and learning in the country’s tertiary education sector.
However, he raised concerns about some ongoing education reforms by the Federal Ministry of Education, arguing that certain policies appeared not to have been adequately scrutinised before their introduction.
Piwuna specifically questioned the policy allowing Colleges of Education to award both the Nigeria Certificate in Education, NCE, and degree qualifications, expressing doubts about the preparedness and institutional capacity of some colleges to operate the dual mandate effectively.
He cautioned that without proper planning and the necessary institutional support, the policy could encounter serious implementation difficulties and potentially be reversed in the future.
The ASUU president therefore called on education policymakers to subject proposed reforms to thorough assessment and ensure that institutions possessed the capacity and resources required before implementation.
The meeting featured technical presentations and interactive discussions, with participation from heads of relevant education agencies and a representative of the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education.
