By Maryam Abeeb
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has called on the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to open a fresh intervention line in the direction of curriculum development to better advance polytechnic education in the country.
The ASUP National President, Anderson Ezeibe, disclosed this in Abuja at at a Two-Day interactive session between TETFund and unions of beneficiary institutions.
Ezeibe said that curriculum development was an integral part of tertiary education that foster functional and impactful tertiary education.
Expressing dissatisfaction at the way the Fund sets up its committee without involvement of the polytechnic unions, he said this should be corrected to enhance effective participation.
According to him, there has been an increased participation of trade unions in the activities of TETFund. It is within this period that we see unions getting involved in monitoring activities of physical projects sponsored by tetfund in tertiary institutions.
He also expressed worry at the spate of abuse of the release of funds by TETFund to institutions management.
“These activities are eye opening events but it can only get better because the feedback from these engagements are in the processes and TETFund can only improve their impact in the education sector.
“This particular monitoring exercise should go beyond physical infrastructure projects. I know that TETFund is involved in other interventions lines of staff trainings development, research and planning and so on.
“At this level, we still have a significant level of abuse at the institutional level and it is only the involvement of the unions that can check this.
“Therefore it is very important that tetfund should design a policy position to ensure trade unions are involved in the level of monitoring and evaluation in the institutions,” he said.
Ezeibe also charged TETFund to include the trade unions in its programmes and project for accountability and delivery of its projects in the tertiary institutions.
“We call for a better inclusion of our sector in the strategic committee of TETFund. Our position is that you cannot build capacity by exclusion.
“The continued exclusion of our sector from the committee of TETFund will continue to undermine capacity building in our sector and also the capacity of the sector to actively compete in the areas of research fund,” he added.
He blamed abuse of TETFund’s project in tertiary institutions on stakeholding activities undermining the impact of the Fund’s projects.
“We have not been very happy with TETFund with respect to its committee on Research and Development.
“One has expected that the outcomes of those engagement would have progress beyond the level that they were left because some of the considerations from that committee were something we believe will enrich the intellectual community of our sector.
“It is important to know that stakeholding activities are undermining the activities of TETFund and in contradiction to see TETFund associate with stakeholding activities that undermine its own impact.
“ We have six Centres of Excellence established across different polytechnics, one in each geopolitical zone, the one in my institution is centred around ICT.
“Unfortunately the report is that due to the scavenging activities of stakeholding arrangements that participate, the centres cannot function effectively, equipment were dumped, centre of excellence for ICT is there dormant because the initial plan has not met its own need,” he said.
