On Monday, November 2, 2020, the University of Lagos played host to the visitation of the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund led by the Chairman, (BoT), Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim-Imam.
During the interactive session with the management and students of the University of Lagos, the Chairman remarked that their visit was part of an inspection of the newly built Academic Publishing Centre (APC) and other TETfund-sponsored projects. The Team-lead also informed that visits of TETfund would include monitoring projects by the agency across over 50 universities in 18 states.
He said that quite a lot of money has been disbursed by TETfund since its inception to better the 226 Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education. TETfund’s interventions in the past three years and next year, put together, has been in the region of N1trillion.
“So, our visit here, is two-folds. Number one, we want to inspect, we want to see, we want to hear from you. Has TETfund impacted? This is very important. Have we invested in critical infrastructure? What is the effect of our investments in research? Are we getting value for money?
On the efforts to reposition the University of Lagos, to raise it to premier status befitting of a global brand. Imam said TETfund has designated the University of Lagos as a Centre of Excellence with High Impact Intervention. We have 12 Centres of Excellence spread across the country and we are investing N1 billion in each of them. But we have also in consultation with the Vice Chancellors decided that each of the universities will focus on one critical area. For UNILAG it is Ecosystem and Biodiversity.
TETfund also announced that N1 billion will be made available for the development of the urology and kidney centre at the University of Lagos as well as 2,000 bed spaces hostel accommodation for the students of the University.
The Ag. Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Professor Folasade Ogunsola, FAS, on behalf of management and students of the University commended TETfund for its various interventions in the University and the painstaking need assessment and monitoring approach, which she said the current board had brought in priming the agency’s intervention in institutions.
The interactive session also had in attendance the Executive Secretary of TETfund, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, other board members and management of the agency. Other sister institutions that are to benefit from the Academic Publishing Centre includes Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo; Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka; Yba College of Technology, Yaba amongst others
