Tag: TETFUND

Prof David Olufemi Bamgbose is the National Chairman of the 50-member Association of Proprietors of Private Colleges of Education in Nigeria. In this interview with SEYI ODEWALE, Bamgbose criticises the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) for excluding private colleges of education from benefiting from its funds, other issues.

Private colleges of education are excluded from benefiting from the TETFund fund. What is your take on this?

At the twilight of the last administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, about 48 bills were passed by the then Senate in one day for presidential assent. One of such was the TETFUND bill.

TETFUND originally was Education Tax Fund (ETF), whereby companies and organisations contribute about two per cent of their profit into the fund for the purposes of strategic interventions in our institutions. The idea was to give a more microscopic view or attention to tertiary institutions. It was later changed to TETFUND (Tertiary Education Trust Fund). But to our utmost dismay, private tertiary institutions were excluded as beneficiaries.

Did you find out why?

What we discovered, according to them, was that private tertiary’s inclusion would encourage proliferation of such institutions.

In the first instance, government gives approval to such institutions? How then can you say it will encourage the proliferation of such institutions? There should be needs assessment, which should be carried out to know the number of institutions that you want in a particular environment and at a particular time.

So, I think it is a lot of disservice to many public spirited individuals, who have invested their resources, time and money in supplementing government’s efforts in establishing private tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Proprietors of private universities are also excluded but they don’t seem to be reacting this way

Private universities are reacting, but I want you to know that there are peculiarities in tertiary institutions. Talking specifically about private colleges whose association I chair, we are very peculiar. One of the challenges that we have is low enrolment because of the perception of teachers in the society.

How are teachers perceived?

If you walk into secondary schools now and ask to know how many of the pupils will want to be teachers in future, you will hardly get up to 1 per cent positive response from them. The blame for the rot in basic education has been heaped on the colleges of education because we produce teachers at that level. So, stakeholders in education have now said if we are having problem at that level, look at colleges of education.

I think there was a policy that graduates of colleges of education are not to teach in secondary schools?

By law, they teach in primary and junior secondary schools. Of course, specialised teachers’ institutions are better than those produced from conventional institutions. Teachers’ education is peculiar. You need to have certain disposition. You don’t just educate teachers, you train them. It involves sound moral education, codes and knowledge, which specialised institutions have.

Unfortunately teachers in public schools are blaming the rot in schools on teachers of private school, but my argument is this: if you look at the graduate output from private colleges of education in Nigeria you will see that our contribution is not up to five per cent which to me,  is the best in the sector. The reason is this: we have the best students to teacher ratio because of low enrolment, we don’t just teach our students, we train them. We don’t have the challenge of large enrolment such as unwieldy hall. We have teachers who are more than adequate enough to take care of those we have enrolled.

If government is saying it does not want to support infrastructural projects embarked upon by private institutions, what about staff and students of such institutions? Are they all not citizens of this country?

Is it only through Federal Government that the fund can be accessed? Can’t state governments  assist private colleges.

State governments have their cups full already. We are not even talking about budgetary allocations, but the money that was contributed by private companies and organisations. TETFUND is from private sources, so why are they saying private institutions are not entitled to benefit? Our argument is not that we should be included in the budget. Our position is that we should not be left out of the fund which come from private organisations and companies.

When the chief executives of private universities meet in Abeokuta in five days, the issue of non-access to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will once again be on the agenda, says Prof Oluwole Amusan, Vice Chancellor of Adeleke University, Ede in Osun State.

Amusan said private universities would not tire of pestering the government to change the unfair regulations that deny the institutions of grants they should rightly access, especially considering that the fund is contributed by the private sector.

In an interview with journalists at the university, Amusan said: “This has been a debate for quite some time now.  As the Vice Chancellor of Adeleke University and as an institution, we feel cheated.  We believe private universities should have access to TETFund, just like public ones.  And one of the reasons why we say this is because private universities are assisting government in providing education to the populace. And if we are doing this, why should we be denied access to the fund that assists institutions in carrying out a responsibility that government is really supposed to address?

“Secondly, you will discover that the source of TETFund, private organizations contribute to it.  If the source is from private organizations, then it is morally wrong to deprive private universities from accessing that fund.  That is our stand.  And I can speak for private universities in the country.”

Other members of the top management of the university joined Amusan in condemning government’s stance on TETFund.

Dean, Faculty of Arts, Prof Oguntoyinbo Atere, faulted the Federal Government for charging high taxes yet not giving private universities anything in return.

“We are being highly taxed.  They take our taxes.  This is a private university; but we are paying so much taxes that go to the coffers of the government.  And yet, nothing comes back to us because it is private.  This is a clear case of cheating and we are very angry,” she said.

On his part, the Dean, Faculty of Law, Prof Johnson Anifalade, described it as an illegality.

Contrary to belief that private universities exist to make profit, the reason many argue that they should not benefit from TETFUND, the Vice Chancellor said Adeleke University proprietor, Dr Adedeji Adeleke, not only subsidises fees to students but also allows them to pay in instalments.

He said: “The fees charged are between N500,000 and N800,000.  But mind you, this fee includes feeding and accommodation.  The N580,000 being charged includes tuition, feeding, and accommodation.  It is a composite fee that is being charged.

“For programmes like engineering, N741,000 is what is being charged.  For Law, the total fee is N830,000.  And I want to say that it even includes fees charged for the partnership we have with New Horizons that is preparing students for different certifications we have in IT.  So that is the range of fees being charged in Adeleke University.

“The Pro-Chancellor has given students the latitude to pay in four instalments.  When they come in, they pay the first quarter.  They stay for some time, and towards the end of the first semester, they pay the second instalment.  When they begin the second semester they have the latitude to pay the third instalment and before they do their final exams, they pay the fourth instalment.  And it makes it in a way that is somehow comfortable and easy for people to access education here at Adeleke University.”

Regarding accreditation, the Vice Chancellor said that of the 13 programmes run by the university, eight are fully accredited, while five have partial accreditation.

He refuted the notion that universities do window dressing for accreditation, adding that Adeleke University, by virtue of its Christian inclination, does not cut corners.

“I will say that members of accreditation teams have a way by which they know whether or not people are window dressing.  We try as much as possible as a faith based institution to be open and to show who we are within the regulations of the National Universities Commission (NUC),” he said.

Lending credence to the Vice Chancellor’s claims, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof Ibikunle Tijani, noted that NUC sends a second set of assessors secretly to verify what the first accreditation team did.

“There is what we call a post-monitoring quality assurance in NUC.  It is not that you get results.  NUC would send people as mystery shoppers to see whether or not what you presented was just a façade or not. I can tell you that a few of us at Adeleke University also serve in this national endeavour  to ensure quality education,” he said.