John Oba
National Association of Polytechnics Students (NAPS) has called on the federal government to remove all barriers to the proper implementation of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) in polytechnics, colleges of education and monotechnics.
The association’s President of the Senate, Comrade Salahudeen Lukman, made the call yesterday when he led a delegation on courtesy visit to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Students Matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe. He added that implementation of the funds in polytechnics and other institutions would reduce the cases of strikes and solve the problem of infrastructure decay.
Lukman, who sent letters of protest to President Goodluck Jonathan and President of the Senate, David Mark, through the Office of the SSAP, said the law establishing the Funds did not properly include other institutions except universities, arguing that TETFUND remained the only way to address the problem of decay infrastructure in the institutions.
Responding, Imagwe, who read from the 2011 Act that established the Fund, said its focus was not limited to the universities, but that efforts would be made to ensure that more attention was paid to the polytechnics and other institutions.
He said education must receive equal attention across board before the goal set could be achieved and assured the students that the polytechnics strikes would “soon be resolved as the government is working to ensure that the students go back to school.”
He, however, urged the student to shun any form of protest as dialogues would achieve more than any protest would.
“The Act that established TETFUND provides that all institutions benefit from it so polytechnics, colleges of education and monotechnics should be enlisted and I know some polytechnics are already benefiting,” he said.
