The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has inaugurated three ad hoc committees with the task of upscaling skills development in the country as well as strengthening the Fund’s intervention activities.
The Committee included: Committee on operationalisation of equipment upgrade in workshops and laboratories for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (technical).
The other committees are: Committee on assessment/review of TETFund centres of excellence and Committee on operationalisation of skills development special intervention.
Speaking at the inauguration of the committee members, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, charged the committees to ensure that the various skills facilities were put to use for effective operations.
Echono noted that the promotion of skills development was one of the priority area of government to address the prevailing challenges of youth unemployment and prevalence of poverty in our society.
He commended the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for making deliberate efforts to improve skill development in Nigerian polytechnics by formalising the informal apprenticeship training through The National Skills Qualification framework (NSOF).
He added that in consonance with the Fund’s commitment to the promotion of skills development, provision was made for skills development programme in Polytechnics under the Fund’s Special Interventions.
“In line with the Fund’s commitment to deepen its content-based interventions and facilitate the institutionalisation of research and development, concerted efforts are being made to identity more innovative ways to enhance research capacities of our beneficiary institutions and promote skills development for our teeming youths.
“Modern economic development process continues to depend on increased productivity arising from purposeful and problem-solving research has been acknowledged that no society can succeed without adequate research infrastructure facilities to support innovative research for solving societal problems,” Echono noted.
Echono explained that the Fund made provision under the 2024 intervention for the upgrade of the equipment in Workshops and Laboratories for Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (Technical).
According to him, to ensure effective implementation of the intervention, the Fund constituted an Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Hayward Babale to advise on the operationalisation of the upgrade of equipment in Workshop and Laboratories of the institutions.
He said the committee was tasked with the reference of assessing the state of workshops and Laboratories in target institutions including equipment and other facilities in use.
