Bauchi Wants TETFund’s Technical Support to Grow Manpower

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The Bauchi state government has solicited the support of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), for its state-owned institutions to train technical manpower in agriculture, oil and gas as well as other fields critical to national development.

Governor of the state, Bala Mohammed, who made the appeal during a visit to TETFund in Abuja, stressed the importance of human capital development in confronting the challenges of underdevelopment, poverty and unemployment.

He said that the state required support for its newly-established College of Education (Technical) as well as intervention in vocational training, where artisans like craftsmen, bricklayers and welders would be trained.

According to him, the college of education will train agricultural officers that will in turn  teach the people of the state on how to farm, plant and raise productivity.

“The Bauchi state government has provided infrastructure in the state university worth over N3 billion to ensure the institution has good roads, water and other amenities. We need a lot of assistance from you immediately to put our educational sector on the phase of prosperity and growth.

“And we have really established the institutional framework, the policy thrust and the big political will to be able to leapfrog the area of education so that we can be producing our own human capital need and even export labour.

“We want to have technicians, some labour that is required in the field. In the agricultural field, we want people that will be teaching our farmers what to do, in terms of what to do during farming season and so on.

“And so, we need your support because you did not know about the establishment of this new technical institution, but for our state university, our colleges of education and others you have done so much,” he said.

Speaking on the exodus of health workers to other countries, Mohammed noted that if Nigerian doctors and teachers were needed abroad, the country should expand its training capacity for such manpower to be used locally and for the purpose of exporting them.

“Go by what they want and produce more and be exporting and getting repatriation of monies coming back not only to Bauchi, but to the states.

“And that’s why we’re repositioning our schools of nursing health technology and university to produce more doctors, since we are found to be competent.

“I think we should not be crying over spilled milk, the more they need the more we should produce for our national need and their need and we need your support in that as well,” he said.

Responding, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, lauded the state government’s effort to invest in education, while pledging the fund’s support for the newly established college of education and efforts to train technical manpower.

Echono stressed the importance of the college, saying that finding teachers on technical subject at the basic level was a challenge.

He added that the teachers and technicians produced in the institution would not be only for Bauchi, but the entire region.