TETFund Increases Research Fund For 2021
BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – The Board of Trustees of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has approved an increase in the national research fund from N7.5 billion to N8.5 billion in 2021.
The board also announced a N5 billion as special intervention for the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to be captured in the 2021 budget.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Alhaji Kashim Imam, announced this at a 2-day capacity building workshop for heads of beneficiary institutions and staff of TETFund centres of excellence, in Abuja.
Imam said the intervention to UNILAG, which was on the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari, was also carried out in University of Abuja in 2020.
He stressed the importance of research as a prerequisite for national development, adding that no nation can develop without research.
Speaking on the academic development programme of the fund, Iman said the list of scholars sponsored by TETFund for PhDs and Masters degree was incredible, warning that if the country funds infrastructure without research and scholarships, the institutions would only be half fulfilled.
He announced that TETFund will add another 12 centres of excellence next year and allocate N1 billion to each.
According to him; “Six state universities and six Polytechnics will be added to the centres of excellence next year, and 70 per cent of the funds will be for research funding”.
Speaking in turn, the Executive Secretary of the Fund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, said the TETFund centres of excellence project is at the first instance, a zonal tertiary education project designed to promote specialisation among participating universities within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Agriculture and Health areas, among others.
Bogoro said the project is geared towards addressing identified national development challenges, as well as strengthening the capacities of beneficiary universities to deliver high quality training and applied research.
He said; “Within the 5-year gestation period of the TCOE Project, we await success stories and manifest achievements that will stretch the limits of our expectations.
The Executive Secretary stressed the need for collaboration, noting that for the first time in the history of TETFund provision is being made for collaboration in the 2021 budget.
