Nigerian Government Approves Intervention Funds For Public Institutions Amid ASUU Strike
THE 2022 intervention funds for public higher education institutions across the country have been approved by the Nigerian government.
While receiving the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, CVCNU, in his office, Arch. Sunday Echono, executive secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, made this known in a statement.
According to Echono, a meeting of all beneficiary institutions will be conducted by Monday next week to further engage and brief on some of the reform proposals that have been accepted for execution.
He reassured the vice-chancellors that the Fund was committed to continuing the sector’s reforms, with a greater focus on the content of its interventions, notably in the areas of research, ICT, and developing a reading culture in our society through book publishing.
The statement reads:
“We have existing partnerships, particularly the deputization 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 the thesis. “Many students plagiarize people’s work”
“We believe in the anti-plagiarism device 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 for all publishers and authors before they can benefit from our support.
“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 brief 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 sited anywhere in the world,” he added.
He also bemoaned the amount of money spent sending children abroad for education, pushing colleges, particularly private ones, to carve out a niche and compete with foreign universities that are enticing students to save money.
Prof Samuel Gowon Edoumiekumo, the chairman of the CVC, expressed confidence that Echono will follow in the footsteps of the previous administration and open up new possibilities for higher education provision in the country.
“As you may be aware, the CVCNU is working closely with the Fund to deploy the thesis digitization for Nigerian tertiary institutions. This is in addition to deploying our homegrown Plagiarism Detection Software called EagleScan.
“The application is a best-in-class solution that will enable all final year and postgraduate students to undertake a plagiarism check before they submit their long essays/thesis, Developed by a team of software engineers from six public and private universities in Nigeria, EagleScan plugs into several local research repositories and offers 14 features, including local language support, that make it stands out against local and international competitors.
“The Funds support for both projects is a significant turning point in the efforts to develop a National Academic Research Repository.”
Source: NAN
