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The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has engaged the officials and members of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to monitor its sponsored projects in the over 250 beneficiary institutions across the country.
The Fund also decried the challenge of poor accommodation in some higher institutions in Nigeria and promised to improve on them through Public Private Partnerships.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, spoke on Monday, in Abuja, when he handed over a brand new 30-seater bus donated to students to support their activities.\
He said the engagement would enable TETFund to strengthen its monitoring system to ensure that more quality services are delivered to the people for the benefit of the students and the institutions.
Echono said that the fund was also committed, through constant dialogue with NANS to meet students’ needs, noting that they are the centre of any policy on education.
”Education is about students and how to equip them with the right skills and knowledge to contribute to 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 aids for getting the information we want. We want to identify in 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 to harvest expectations.
Ecjono said: “We want you to be our eye in various institutions, helping us to report erring contractors to ensure transparency in the system.
“We want to be able to identify on each campus a contact person that will be able to checkmate our projects so that we can have first-hand information, even before sending our team there.
“We are doing several engagements with other stakeholders. So, going forward, this will make our monitoring process more transparent. we would work out modalities for this engagement soon.”
He appealed to the students to take good care of the bus so it can serve them for a very long time.
Responding, NANS President Usman Barambu assured the board that it will put thorough checks across campuses to ensure that contractors who handle TETFund projects carry out such projects.
The student body commended the board for donating a 30-seater coaster bus to them, following their request.
“We are here to thank you and encourage the entire management to do more and more for Nigerian students,” Barambu stated.
