The immediate past Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof. Suleiman Elias Bogoro has praised himself for what he described as remarkable achievements made while in office.
Bogoro disclosed this during his handover ceremony in Abuja on Monday, March 21, 2022.
TheFact Nigeria recalls that Arc. Sonny Echono, the immediate past Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, was appointed as Executive Secretary of TETFund by President Muhammadu Buhari earlier this month.
Bagoro, while introducing his successor said: “For us at TETFund, we have many reasons to celebrate.
“The immediate past Permanent Secretary that is the new ES of TETFund, represented the Ministry creditably, I had the privilege of getting the support and cooperation in all ramifications and I thank him for demonstrating this nobility.
The former TETFund Helsman went further to speak about his stay in office:
“Today, as I hand over, I can reflect over what I consider as remarkable achievements.
“A number of Nigerians have referred to TETFund as the most impactful intervention agency in Nigeria, that is what I am happy to leave behind
“As much as we can, we have, through the departments and units done what we believe our beneficiary institutions expected of us”, he said.
He charged the incoming Executive Secretary to also meet their expectations in line with the Board of Trustees’ approval.
Reeling out his achievements, Bogoro quoted a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) as saying, “the ranking of Nigerian universities have improved over the last 2-3 years, and we must give credit to TETFund for its intervention.
Prof. Bogoro continued: “six, seven years ago, only one Nigerian University was among the top 2000 in the world.
‘By 2015, one Nigerian University was in the top 1000.
“By 2020, the university of Ibadan came in the top 400- 500 in the world, and they gave the credit to TETFund”, he said.
Going further, he explained that, under his watch, funding for research work in higher institutions particularly the universities have greatly improved.
“Upto 2019, there was only 4billion naira
seed money over the period of 8years for research but we urged that it be scaled up and from that time, it became annual rather than seed money for many years.
“In 2019, it was 5billion naira seed funds, in 2020, it rose to 7.5billion naira, and last year, it was 8.5billion naira.
“Others include building of infrastructures especially the virtual library infrastructures, research in gene sequencing, covid-19 vaccines among others”, he said.
To this end, the former TETFund Helsman charged his successor to raise the bar.
Echono in his remarks, gave the assurance to build on the solid foundation that has already been laid by his predecessor:
“We shall strengthen the areas where improvements are required, we shall also be focusing on curriculum development to make our graduates more relevant, not just to be employable but creators of wealth.
“We must create symbiotic relationship between the industry and the tertiary institutions to ensure seamless development of manpower.
“We will initiate critical consultation with stakeholders especially the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Non-academic staff and other unions including Committee of Vice Chancellors, NAAT, SSANU and others to get feedback from them to know how better to use judiciously the resources committed into the hands of TETFund”, he said.
