TETFUND seeks more investment in basic schools to enhance learning

EXECUTIVE Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund ( TETFUND), Sonny Echono, has called for more investment in primary and secondary schools to enhance the pursuit of purposive tertiary education, which is tailored towards meeting society’s needs.

Echono, who spoke, while receiving education correspondents on a visit to his office, noted that if Nigeria could address its educational problems, it would ultimately address the problem of unemployment, criminalities, hopelessness, social vices and others.

The TETFUND boss also decried the failure of some politicians to prioritise education at the national level as they do at private level, where they send their children abroad for schooling at a very high cost.

According to him, politicians prefer to invest on road, market and other infrastructures that they can use to bolster their campaigns at the next election, adding that a good governor who invests in education, understands that the fruits of those seeds he is planting may come forward between 12 and 16 years when his two terms would have expired.

“Tertiary, despite being my primary responsibility, I would tell you, is even the secondary priority to basic. We must invest so that every child in this country has at least an opportunity to learn how to read and write.

“Once you have that solid foundation, you can begin to build on it, and tertiary education is at the apex of that building. At that point now, you are investing; you are deciding to develop human capital in view to meeting a need within the society, and that need can be met profitably. So, you begin to reap the reward of your education after tertiary education,” he said.

While stating that the best investment anyone can leave for his children is education, he said many politicians are not interested in education because there are no tangible results to see from their investments during their time in office.

“A lot of parents make a lot of sacrifice trying to train their children. Some even labour to train them abroad. But when it comes to the national stage, our tendency is not to prioritise education as we would have done at the private personal level,” he said.