Mr. Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), claims that the organization does not place more emphasis on research than on the physical infrastructure of postsecondary institutions.
Echono made the clarification in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
“The truth is that we are doing fencing and other physical infrastructure in tertiary institutions, but we are not prioritizing that above research.
“The reason why we are doing that is because, unfortunately for us as a country, we have a peculiar problem, which is insecurity,” he said.
He said that what the agency is doing in the area of fencing is less than one third of what it is doing in the area of research in tertiary institutions.
“We have been investing in it; we call it security infrastructure. The level of what we are doing in the area of fencing in schools is nothing compared to research in tertiary institutions.
According to him, the fence would also protect the school lands from being encroached, adding that the easiest way to stop people from encroaching on the school lands is to fence them.
He said that the fencing is not limited to tertiary institutions alone, as secondary schools are also beneficiaries of the initiative.
Echono added that the fund was not only focusing on infrastructure but also on other aspects that would lead to the overall development of tertiary institutions across the country.
“We are changing the infrastructure, and if you go to our campuses every year, we are investing to upgrade facilities.
“Even this year, we have dedicated most of our funding to improving the existing infrastructure. We say, ‘Don’t even build new ones; pay attention to the ones that you have,” he said. (NAN)
