ASUU rejects private varsities as TETFund beneficiaries

President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities ((ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has kicked against the plan by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to include private universities as beneficiaries of its projects.

Prof Osodeke stated this at a two-day interactive session between TETFund and all unions of beneficiary institutions.

Osodeke said such a move will lead to proliferation of private universities devoid of quality.

He, however, urged the fund to work more on the monitoring method of its projects across the country, stressing that the level of performance by the beneficiary institutions were not in tandem as some of them received the same amount of money.

He also called on TETFund to apply sanctions on non-performing institutions and advocate the abolition of what he referred to as “stakeholders fund”.

He said: “ASUU will continue to embark on strike until the right thing is done in our tertiary institutions. Stakeholders fund should be abolished.”

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arch. Sonny Echono, disclosed that the interactive session was conceived as a proactive engagement against the backdrop of the prevailing challenges in the subsector.

Echono noted that the engagement was also for the purpose of sustaining steady growth and development of tertiary education.

“It is our fervent hope that this interactive session will provide an enabling environment for us to understand some of our challenges and difficulties in the delivery of quality education in our institutions and thereby make meaningful contribution to the successful execution of the objective of the Fund,” he said.

“The session is also expected to serve as a platform to discuss and mitigate incidences of industrial disputes in the tertiary education sector and look at ways to prevent and avoid their occurrences,” he said.

Speaking on ‘The Role of Trade Unions in TETFund Intervention Activities’, former President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, commended the fund for its strident commitment to the elevation of university education and experience for bothe lecturers, non academic workers and the student population in various campuses all over the country.

Wabba noted that the NLC has benefitted a great deal from the ideological clarity and consistency of the unions in the tertiary institutions.

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