Prof. Amidu Olalekan Sanni, the Vice Chancellor of Osogbo, Osun state, based Fountain University has appealed to the Federal Government to change the law which stipulates that only public owned tertiary institutions can benefit from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TET-Fund).
Prof Amidu made this appeal while addressing a press conference on the 10th anniversary of the institution in Osogbo. He said the TET- Fund should be made available to all institutions because graduates produced by private universities, and their counterparts from public universities would at the end of the day serve the same corporate institutions contributing to the fund.
According to him, what should be paramount for the government is finding every available opportunity to raise the standard of education. He also noted that government’s support for infrastructural development in private institutions will ensure that there is a conducive environment for learning, which, according to him, would in the long run result in multiplier effects in the national economy.
Prof Amidu said: “In as much as there is no one asking for whether graduates are products of private or public universities before they are employed, the government has no excuse to support the public in situation to achieve their mandate.
“What should interest the government is the quality of graduate and part of necessary steps to raise education standard in the country today is to shun discriminatory policies because in the overall it would not do this great nation no good.” He also informed that the management of the school had reached out to the Islamic schools at the basic level to have a uniform study curriculum so that they could benefit from advanced studies in Arabic course to be soon introduced by the university.
He added that the university is planning to collaborate with many universities in Asia, Europe and United States of America to build capacity of its staff. Sahara Reporters
