Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund
(TETFund), Sonny Echono disclosed this during a meeting with the leadership of
the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) at the
headquarter of the agency in Abuja.
Echono said a meeting of all beneficiary institutions will
hold on May 9, 2022 to discuss some of the proposed reforms approved for
implementation.
He assured the vice-chancellors of the agency’s commitment
to sustain the ongoing reforms in the sector, with increased emphasis on the
content of its interventions particularly in the areas of research, ICT and in
the areas of encouraging a reading culture in our society through publication
of books.
Echono said: “On the issue of support, I’m pleased to inform
you that His Excellency Mr President has just approved the 2022 disbursement
proposals and guidelines and the meeting of all beneficiary institutions will
be held by next week Monday to interact further and briefly, including some of
the proposed reforms that have been approved for implementation.
“At the heart of this is the issue of journals. We are keen
and determined to ensure that publications are useful, relevant and are also
current that can be cited anywhere in the world.
“We have existing partnerships, particularly the
digitisation of Thesis. We are confident that once this is accomplished it will
not only provide open learning resources for researchers and students who want
to access previous works done in their respective areas of research but also
promote a culture of academic excellence.
“One of the problems of our education today is the quality
of our graduates, particularly the quality of their thesis. Many students
plagiarise peoples work.
“We believe an anti – plagiarism device as you have
developed will go a long way in dictating this and ensuring compliance. Indeed,
we have adopted a policy in TETFund that going forward, all proposals coming to
us must go through your system and receive certification that it has passed a
minimum standard that is required and for all publishers and authors before it
can benefit from our support.”
He also lamented the amount of resources being spent in
sending children abroad for studies, urging universities, especially private
ones, to create a niche and compete with foreign universities that are
attracting out students in order to save cost.
Chairman of the CVC, Prof Samuel Edoumiekumo, expressed
confidence that Echono will con tinue with the trajectories of the past
leadership and introduce new vistas that will add value to higher education
provisioning in the country.
The CVCNU called for review of the funding support to
beneficiary institutions to access tier one journals and repositories to
improve the research capabilities of staff and students and to also help build
the capacity of academic staff for generating content, especially video and
3-Dimensional images to support teaching.
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