All over the world, education sector plays a key role in providing the needed balance in the form of skilled manpower, developing techniques and methodologies that are required for the nation to thrive.
To achieve this, organisations are investing in the management and training of human capital development of its staff to enable them contribute and enhance the economic position of their respective countries.
It is based on this premise that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) created the department of academic staff training and development to enhance the skills and knowledge of lecturers to perform better.
So far, the Fund has expended over N185bn in the training of 35,000 scholars under its Academic Staff training in public tertiary institutions across the country.
The TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff commenced in 2008 with the sole aim of training and up-scaling the educational capacity of the academic staff of beneficiary institutions.
Speaking recently when representatives of TETFund scholars alumni steering committee paid a courtesy visit to the executive secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, the acting director of academic staff training and development, Alhaji Abdullahi Imam said the Fund is training scholars both locally and internationally.
Alhaji Imam said the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff which commenced in 2008 with the sole aim of training and up-scaling the educational capacity of academic staff of beneficiary institutions is the second in expenditure after infrastructural projects of the Fund.
He said “The training is both locally and foreign, to enable them conduct and access cutting edge research facilities, quality teaching and learning and global networking
“It will interest you to know that we have so far trained about 35, 000 scholars and a whopping sum of One hundred and eighty five billion naira were expended in that direction. It is a complete project of the fund, it is the second largest expenditure of the fund after infrastructure,” Imam Said.
Imam also sought the executive secretary’s approval to have a TETFund Scholars Alumni in order to help identify areas of specialisation and pool them into a critical mass of knowledgeable workforce and change agents for the development of the nation.
He further stressed that the Alumni through its planned journals on issues like innovation and entrepreneurship, science, engineering and technology, art, humanities and social science would help to prevent or curtail intellectual flight.
One of the scholars, Prof. Kinsley Nwozor stated that they were at TETFund to express appreciation for standing by them throughout the period of their studies.
He added that even though some of them were tempted to stay back after their education, they have decided to come back to the nation to prove their mettle and showcase to the world that the dream of TETFund was a well-thought intention.
“There is no national agency that has done what TETFund is doing in Nigeria. An investment of N185 billion is not a chicken change. It is time for us to look at innovative ways of making TETfund stand out. You have done so much with gigantic infrastructures in universities. We also believe that gigantic structures don’t make gigantic universities but gigantic minds.
“We are TETfund ambassadors whenever we are and with you by our side, there is nothing we cannot achieve. People have learnt skills, gotten knowledge, this is the time to translate that knowledge to national wealth, others are waiting for us to begin to pass skills over to them and we are ever ready.
“Nobody is funding us, it is purely voluntary, I came all the way from Awka, and my colleagues came from different parts of the country we are not here to become parasite to TETFund, we are here to become a source of revenue to TETFund for the development of this country ,” he said.
In his response, Echono promised to support the scholars wherever they needed help adding the first point will be to develop a database that will have all the names of the beneficiaries and their areas of specialisation.
“We want to count our blessings even beyond the scholars. You are only a vessel. You are a vehicle through which we achieve our primary aim of improving the quality of teaching and learning in the higher institutions and also promoting research and making the findings of those research touch the lives of our people; translating those research and innovations so that people can consume them, improve their lives and generate income from them,” he said.
Apart from academic staff training and development, TETFund is investing hugely in research, book development, and publication of journals by scholars.
The scholars get a helpline from TETFund as they can seek funds to further their studies and improve their capabilities for the nation and their institutions.
Beneficiaries of the fund who are mainly tertiary institutions, are required to apply the funds for the provision of essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning, provision of instructional materials and equipment, research, book development and publications, academic staff training and development and any other need which is seen as critical and essential to the improvement of quality and maintenance of standards in the educational institutions.
The Fund is also advising tertiary institutions in the country to train their staff locally for national growth.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETFund, Kashim Ibrahim, recently insisted that TETFund placed a premium on academic staff training and development anywhere in the world.
He pointed out that the major problem in call for more inward look is due to the depreciation of the naira.
