Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Arc. Sonny Echono, has enlisted the support of Registrars of tertiary institutions in the country to ensure maximum utilisation of Tertiary Education, Research, Applications and Services, (TERAS).
TERAS was launched by TETFund in 2023 to provide a centralized hub for tertiary education services, fostering collaboration, efficiency, and innovation by providing a wide range of capabilities and functionalities for tertiary education institutions, students, researchers, and the entire education ecosystem.
Echono made this plea in Abuja at the 2nd Registrars’ Workshop and 75th Business Meeting of the Association of Registrars of Nigerian Universities, ARNU, with the theme: “Sustainable Legal Framework as Panacea for Industrial Harmony in the Nigerian University System: Challenges and Remedies.”
Echono, who disclosed that over 2.5 million students have enrolled in the platform, disclosed that though TERAS has excess capacity, public institutions are given the preference of onboarding first before it is extended to private universities.
“I have been threatening our public institutions that because we have excess capacity, if they don’t finish taking them up, we will extend it to private universities, because they are Nigerian students, but we want to give them the opportunity first to finish onboarding their students.
“Currently we have about 2.4 or 2.5 million students enrolled. But my biggest concern, which is also another advantage of MoUs, is not so much availability, that people are enrolled, we are interested in the usage, how many students are using all these facilities?
“We put resources on the platform so at the moment it has an overlay of an identity management system, we call it beneficiary identity management, BIMS, and once you are registered on BIMS it gives you access at no cost to all these learning resources, whether it is all the 4,000 libraries that are available,” he said.
Echono further disclosed that TETFund is to connect all National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, study Centres nationwide with ICT fibre infrastructure to improve access to resources by all students.
He noted that registrars of tertiary institutions play a very key role because they are the custodians of records, adding that the fund has been engaging with them to ensure maximum utilisation of the ICT infrastructure for administrative purposes.
He stressed the importance of data in the school system and said data has however been a big issue in Nigeria’s educational system as even in the tertiary institutions the country has not been able to do a lot about it but that has been prioritised by the present administration.
“That our educational data should be credible, should be up-to-date and it should be available in a ubiquitous manner for people to be able to access because you can’t plan effectively if you don’t have credible accurate data.
“And that data is being dumped through ICT; so, we are working with registrars to ensure that.
“A lot of lectures are actually utilising it already because in realtime from our office, I can see how many students are on it at this particular point in time, how many lecturers are using it for lesson notes and it makes education a lot easier,” he stated.
Earlier, the National Chairman of Association of Registrars of Nigerian Universities (ARNU) Ife Oluwale, disclosed that the workshop was to help Registrars of Universities hone their skills and be abreast with current trends in University Administration globally.
Oluwale said the Association was committed to the capacity development of its members and believes that a trained staff is an invaluable asset to any organisation.