THE Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has granted over one billion, two hundred million naira (#1,200, 000,000) as Normal and Zonal Intervention for 2023 allocation for the construction of Female Hostel and also develop the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Unit in Plateau State University (PLASU), Bokkos.
The Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Bernard M. Matur, disclosed this recently while addressing journalists at a press briefing organised by the university’s management, held at the Senate Chamber of the Institution in Bokkos, Plateau State.
The Vice Chancellor said, “You may recall that I took over the mantle of leadership of the Plateau State University, Bokkos on the 1st day of March this year as the 5th substantive Vice-Chancellor. Today, however, I have something to tell the media having studied the handing over notes and carefully appraised the situation on ground.
“I have embarked on diplomatic shuttles with major stakeholders in the education industry both at the state, federal and international levels with the sole objective of providing academic excellence through collaboration. Such visits took me to both state actors, TETFund, National University Commission (NUC), the Federal Ministry of Education, meetings with Ambassador of Czech representative in Nigeria, High Chief Edwin Clerk, etc.
“These yielded results and the university is indeed grateful to TETFund for granting us over 1. 2 billion naira as Normal and Zonal Intervention for 2023 allocation. The fund is being used to construct female hostels and develop the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Unit”, he enthused.
Matur, also, thanked the National University Commission (NUC) for demonstrating faith in PLASU by constituting assessment teams of technocrats and academicians to appraise their facilities to access the activities of their SIWES, Entrepreneurship and advancement and Linkage office as peer review mechanisms of evaluating their strengths and weaknesses.
“NUC has approved that we commence academic programmes in four (4) faculties: Law , Agriculture, Environmental Sciences and Health Sciences and School of Postgraduate Studies. A total of 25 new programmes are now added to existing 17 programmes, bringing it to a total of 42 academic programmes in the university”, the VC disclosed.
He, however, commended all founding fathers of the university which has: His Excellency, Chief Joshua Dariye, Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong, while as the Speaker then, former Head of States, General Yakubu Gowon and also former Governor Jonah David Jang for making the institution well known at NUC when it was temporarily closing down.
The VC also thanked the current government of His Excellency, Governor Caleb Manaseh Mutfwang, for taking the lead in advocating on behalf of the university. “We equally thank the government for its commitment and support in the needed manpower resources,” he stated.
“On our part, we are also working on perfecting our plans towards establishing a Plateau State University Business School, an online Distance Learning Centre and the establishment of a bottle and sachet water factory to boost our internally generated revenue. This is amongst the many plans we have put in place to add value and stem our over dependence on government for our funding needs”, he assured.
