Bauchi Gov urges TETFund to intervene in state-owned college of education
The Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, has appealed to the management of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), to enlist for intervention, the newly established state-owned college of education to boost the production of quality teachers and other skilled manpower needed in the state and country at large.
He made the call on Wednesday when he paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, at the Fund’s headquarters in Abuja.
The Governor who stressed the importance of human capital development in confronting challenges of underdevelopment, poverty, and unemployment, noted that the college of education and other newly established tertiary institutions were designed to train technical manpower in agriculture, oil and gas and other fields critical to national development.
Mohammed emphasised that the state requires support for its newly-established college of education, technical, as well as intervention in vocational training, where artisans; craftsmen, bricklayers and welders would be trained.
According to him, the college of education will train agricultural officers who will teach the people of the state how to farm, plant and raise productivity, adding that his government has provided infrastructure in the state university worth over N3 billion to ensure the institution has good roads, water and other amenities.
“We need a lot of assistance from you immediately to put our educational sector on the path of prosperity and growth. And we have really established the institutional framework, the policy thrust and the political will to be able to leapfrog the area of education so that we can be producing our own human capital needs and even export labour,” he said.
The Governor further noted that with the exodus of teachers and health workers to other countries, Nigeria should expand its training capacity for such manpower to be used locally and for the purpose of exporting them.
Mohammed thanked TETFund for its interventions in the state, stating that most of the infrastructure in its federal and state tertiary institutions was provided by the agency.
Responding, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, lauded the state government’s effort to invest in education, while pledging the fund’s support for the newly established college of education and efforts to train technical manpower.
Echono stressed the importance of the college for training teachers on technical subjects at the basic level, which he noted had been a challenge, adding that the teachers and technicians produced in the institution would not be only for Bauchi, but the entire region.
“So, quickly I’ll be advising my director to liase with the Hon. Commissioner for Higher Education. We’ll do the formalities of enlistments if we can quickly get that done. So, we can begin to support that. I’ve also noted Your Excellency’s submissions on issues requests for high-impact vocational training and also to address some of the environmental challenges that you face.
“We recognise the additional burden you face and issues around flooding. I’m pleased to let you know that Mr. President has approved our 2024 interventions and included in that are provisions for disaster recovery.
“We have also made provisions to carry out some completion on some critical abandoned projects and also to provide security infrastructure. A good number of which Bauchi State will be eligible for consideration,” he said.
