Tinubu directs TETFund to support funding of teaching practice

Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arch Sonny Echono, says the Fund recently received a communique regarding the Presidential directive on the support of teaching practice.

He said the communique also contained recommendations of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission regarding the teaching practice allowance, which now includes Faculties of Education in our Universities.

Echono disclosed this while speaking at a workshop on “Emerging Areas of Students Needs in Beneficiary Institutions’’ organised by the Fund on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said the issue requires collective brainstorming in order to give effect to the Presidential directive.

“It may lead to the reworking of the teaching practice funding template currently in use. The methodology employed in the computation of the allowance by the Fund and that of the Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission appear to be different, hence the need for harmonization to achieve shared acceptance,” he said.

He explained that while the Fund, as approved by the Board of Trustees, provided a 3 days Duty Tour Allowance to supervisors, based on the civil service recommended rate and a transportation support based on grade levels.

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“As a directive of the government, the Fund is obliged to comply and implement the content and spirit of the directive. The Fund, by all means recognizes the significance of the inclusion of the student- teachers and the Faculties of Education which is to make the teaching profession more attractive,” he said.

The executive secretary said the workshop further seeks to address other equally important ICT programmes and the hostel development drive using the Public Private Partnership model.

“Today’s world is driven by information and communications technology and any education system that is not ICT driven or compliant may not compete favorably in the global environment. This is why the Fund has paid special attention to its information and communications technology roadmap that led to the development of the Tertiary Education Research, Application and Services platform (TERAS).”

Speaking, National President Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Anderson Ezeibe, stressed on the importance of TETFund to activate a platform that will ensure monitoring at institutional level, saying that’s one sure way of extracting value for money and not about establishing intervention lines but the impacts in the education sector.

“Commendably, we are seeing the infrastructures and persons sponsored for various scholarships, training local and abroad. We would achieve much more if we have the right and strong monitoring platforms operating in the tertiary institutions,” he said.