TETfund: Ahmed orders probe of colleges of education

The Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, has ordered a probe into the spending of state-owned colleges of education following an alleged mismanagement of the Tertiary Education Trust fund.

The colleges are those at Ilorin, Lafiagi and Oro.

The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Tunji Morounfoye, who spoke to journalists in Ilorin on Monday, said the governor directed the Ministry of Tertiary Education to probe the alleged abuse of funds.

According to  Morounfoye,  the Ministry for Tertiary Education is also to review the schools’ curricula to ensure that they produce well-trained teachers.

Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor, Crawford University, Igbesa, Ogun State, Prof. Samson Ayanlaja, has called on the Federal Government to extend the TETfund largesse to the private universities in the country.

He made this call in an interview with one of our correspondents.

He noted that the owners of private universities were also contributing to the educational development of the country, and so deserved to get from the fund.

He said, “It has been our plea and cry to the Federal Government to extend the Tertiary Education Trust Fund to the private universities. This is because we are also helping to provide education for the teeming youths of the country.

“Since government cannot do it alone, we the operators of private universities are contributing our quota to the educational development of the country.”

According to Ayanlaja, private institutions are thriving because they have been able to create standards which are lacking in public institutions.

He said, “It is believed that there is rot in the public education sector and in any sector where the private sector finds the government not doing well enough, they come in to fill the gap.

“Teachers are sometime owed salaries; structures are dilapidated without the government doing anything about it. Pupils do not have enough seats in classrooms. That is why the private sector comes in to fill this gap.”

In another development, the authorities of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State have expelled three students for their alleged involvement in Internet fraud and theft.

The management of the university, in a statement, on Monday said it also reprimanded 40 other students for violating the institution’s dress code.

Those found guilty of violating the institution’s dress code, the statement added, were warned and asked to write an undertaking to be of good behaviour.

Also, the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin has suspended nine students for their alleged involvement in cultism.

The Head, Information and Publication Division, polytechnic, Mr. Moshood Amuda, said the students had been handed over to the police for interrogation.