In an effort to elevate three Kwara State institutions of education to universities, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has asked the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for support.
During a working visit with Sonny Echono, the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, on Wednesday in Abuja, AbdulRazaq made the proposal.
Kwara State College of Education, Oro; Kwara State College of Education (Technical), Lafiagi; and Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin are the three colleges of education that will be converted into universities.
AbdulRazaq reported that most state-owned colleges of education experienced infrastructure issues, low investment, and staff lopsidedness, with non-teaching staff outnumbering academic staff.
He praised the TETFund for its significant investments in both federal and state public tertiary institutions around the country.
He also stated that Kwara now boasts one of the top university libraries in West Africa as a result of the TETFund’s assistance.
“Mainly, this visit is to say you are doing a good job and on behalf of the people and government of Kwara State, we say thank you for the job you have done and we appreciate you.
“But we need more support. By and large, we intend to convert all our colleges of education to universities of education and so we need your assistance to do that. It is easy to do that because the structures are there,” he said.
Echono, in response, vowed to assist the state in realising its aim of transforming some of the state’s institutes of education into universities.
He praised Kwara State for leading the north in education since the colonial era, as seen by the state’s large number of institutions.
In response to the issue of insecurity in the country’s schools, Echono stated that the fund has been working with security agencies, the Ministry of Education, and others to secure children’s safety.
“We are doing everything possible to avoid the recurrence of last week’s incident in Kaduna. Kwara has been very useful to the country in providing institutions that train teachers at the basic level of education.
“On our end, we introduced a new intervention line last year where we try to upgrade security facilities in our beneficiary institutions. We are doing something about it and Kwara will be featured in that equation,” the TETFund boss said.