…As stakeholders laud Echono

Every challenge births an opportunity for an organisation to reinvent itself. Like a whirlwind, the COVID-19 pandemic caused massive disruptions around the world and a profound impact on every aspect of life. Like other parts of the world, it also caused disruptions to the education sector in Nigeria as schools were forced to shut down for an extended period. With physical classrooms closed, there was a rapid shift towards online learning.

 
However, this transition was challenging due to issues such as lack of Internet access, high data cost, lack of devices and digital literacy for many students, educators and staff of tertiary institutions. The development also put additional stress on lecturers as they had to adapt quickly to new teaching methods, often without adequate training or support.
 
The devastating impact on the education sector served as a catalyst for action, including the recent creation of Tertiary Education Research, Applications and Services (TERAS), a brainchild of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), under the dynamic leadership of Sonny Echono.
 
This development witnessed input from regulatory agencies in the sector including the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) as well as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Galaxy Backbone among others.
 
Speaking at the unveiling and launching of the platform in Abuja last week, Echono, explained that the platform was a centralized hub for tertiary education services, designed to bring educators, students and the academic community together.
 
The ground-breaking platform, he pointed out, offers a wide range of capabilities and functionalities for public tertiary institutions, students, researchers and the entire education ecosystem.
 
Echono listed the various services of the platform to include Beneficiary Identity Management System (BIMS), federated academic repository to address critical challenges faced by students, researchers and institutions in accessing educational resources and research materials.
 
Other benefits for institutions, staff and students include sponsored Mobile Internet Access, EagleScan for plagiarism checking, Aggregated Journal and Research Subscription, Blackboard Learning Management System and Digital Literacy, among others.
 
The Executive Secretary disclosed that over 215 tertiary institutions have benefitted from TETFund’s interventions in Information Communications Technology (ICT) since 2016 and that the Blackboard system, which enhances online learning and increases capacity in communication skills has benefitted over two million staff and students of beneficiary institutions with a target of three million end-users before the end of 2023.
 
He said: “TETFund is an intervention agency set up to provide supplementary support to all level of public tertiary institutions with the main objective of using funding alongside project management for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in the country.
 
“Our journey towards TERAS has also been influenced by the ever-increasing importance of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) across various innovations spanning data and analytics, internet of things, convergence, block-chain, Artificial Intelligence, NANO technology and others.
 
“Policies have been carefully crafted and implemented to harness the power of technology, unleashing its immense potential to uplift our educators, empower our students and produce a workforce that is globally competitive and able to address national challenges as well as exploit opportunities for sustainable economic growth and development. TERAS adopts a strategic approach by aggregating these services, ensuring that the value for money is maximized while making a wide array of services available to the entire education ecosystem.”

With the launch of the platform, industry experts believed the disruptions caused by COVID-19 will never happen again. Stakeholders who spoke at the event applauded the enormous contributions of TETFund under the leadership of Echono, especially in his efforts at complementing the achievements of the ministry. According to them, without the interventions of the Fund, higher institutions in Nigeria would have totally collapsed.
 
Unveiling the scheme, Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, described it as a game changer that will transform the nation’s tertiary education landscape. The event, he noted, marked another significant milestone in the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to transform tertiary education in our country.
 
While assuring that the ministry would continue to provide unwavering support to beneficiary institutions as well as the Fund, the Minister stressed that the new platform will offer free mobile internet access to staff and students on and off campus, access to research e-Journals all year round, plagiarism detection services, provide renewable power solutions for beneficiary institutions’ libraries among others.
 
He expressed the ministry’s commitment to leverage on digital educational resources provided by TERAS to accelerate the adoption of hybrid learning methodologies in public tertiary Institutions.
 
The Secretary, Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Professor Yakubu Ochefu, commended the TETFund boss for putting in place, the technology, and urged Nigerians with any form of technology that can fill gaps in the education sector and add value to Nigeria’s edu-tech to come forward.
 
“I want to draw the attention of the minister to ensure TERAS serves as a research platform for all Nigerians. It has been built on a public educational platform and should be opened to all Nigerians, so that it can be one of the world’s best repositories.”
 
Some of the end-users: students, lecturers and researchers also shared testimonies of how they have benefited from several interventions of the Fund.