The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, has announced that the government is set to defund any underperforming Center of Excellence established by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) eight years ago.
Expressing his concerns, Mamman emphasized that the government cannot continue to allocate funds to institutions that fail to fulfill their obligations. He stressed the importance of accountability and efficiency in utilizing government resources.
During the reception of two reports from TETFund’s ad hoc committees, Mamman reiterated the government’s commitment to promoting excellence in scholarship and skill development. He urged scholars to meet global standards and contribute meaningfully to national development.
“The government is encouraging our scholars to simply rise to the occasion and deliver on their scholarship, what world class scholars do; and we are not going to reward indolence. We can’t be giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.
“In terms of the skill, we want to raise the equipment level of those institutions, polytechnic and others so that they can provide all the skill set that we need in Nigeria in the highest quality that can service the country and internationally,” he said.
Echoing Mamman’s sentiments, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, underscored the need for accountability and performance evaluation. He revealed that some centers have failed to access funds allocated to them due to their inability to meet set milestones.
“The idea was to incubate, to have one centre, the right equipment, the right tools, the right faculty and experts, that would lead our efforts in research, in promoting scholarship at the highest level so that they can also inspire other centres.
“We are going to be pooling from other institutions within the area who want to do further research or who want to carry out any other exploratory study in those particular fields in those areas,” he said.