•Seeks sustainable collaboration with mortgage industry on standards
To tackle the housing gap being faced by tertiary institutions, the Federal Government has kick-started construction of 36 modern hostels nationwide.
Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, made the disclosure yesterday when he received the new leadership of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), led by its president, Lucky Emonefe.
Reacting to the association’s call for maintenance of TETFund projects in institutions of higher learning across the country and construction of NANS secretariat in Abuja, Echono observed the increased allocation for maintenance of TETFund infrastructure above five years in the 2024 intervention cycle.
On the NANS secretariat, he promised to look into it and get the buy-in of the Ministry of Education. The TETFund boss added that the interventionist agency would work out modalities to incorporate the students’ body for joint monitoring of projects across beneficiary institutions.
Echono urged students to embrace the agency’s digital platform for tertiary institutions – Tertiary Education Research, Applications and Services (TERAS).
This, he said, would address critical challenges faced by students, researchers and institutions in accessing educational resources and research materials.
According to him, other services such as sponsored mobile Internet access, EagleScan for plagiarism check, aggregated journal and research subscription inclusive of EBSCO, Blackboard Learning Management System, digital literacy and intervention funding are available to both public and private tertiary institutions in the country.
SIMILARLY, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development, Abdullahi Gwarzo, has called for continuous collaboration between the ministry and the Institute of Mortgage Brokers and Lenders of Nigeria for adherence to specifications in construction of houses by practitioners in the built industry.
He made the appeal yesterday while playing host to the institute’s governing council of the Institute, led by its president, Hayatuddeen Atiku Awwal in Abuja.
The minister acknowledged that the body’s role in setting prescribed rules and regulations that ensure adherence to best practices and ethical standards was a good measure to safeguard interests of both consumers and professionals.
Earlier, Awwal, said the institute has identified some challenges facing the housing sector with regard to home ownership and creation of jobs. He, therefore, urged the ministry to find a way of addressing them, as well as unlocking the potentials in the mortgage industry and driving positive changes.
