Kwara State to convert three colleges of education to varsities

Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has sought the support of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, in its bid to upgrade three colleges of education in the state to universities.

AbdulRazaq made the request when he paid a working visit to the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Sonny Echono, on Wednesday in Abuja.

He listed the three colleges of education for conversion into universities to include Kwara State College of Education, Oro; Kwara State College of Education (Technical), Lafiagi; and Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin.

AbdulRazaq revealed that most state-owned colleges of education were faced with infrastructure challenges, poor investment, and staff lopsidedness, whereby non-teaching staff outnumbered the academic staff of the institutions.

He commended TETFund for its massive interventions in both federal and state public tertiary institutions across the country.

He further disclosed that it was on record that Kwara has one of the best university libraries in West Africa, courtesy of TETFund’s intervention.

“Mainly, this visit is to say you are doing a good job and on behalf of the people and government of Kwara State, we say thank you for the job you have done and we appreciate you.

“But we need more support. By and large, we intend to convert all our colleges of education to universities of education and so we need your assistance to do that. It is easy to do that because the structures are there,” he said.

Echono, in his response, pledged to help the state actualise its dream of converting some of the colleges of education in the state into universities.

He commended Kwara State for leading the north in education right from the colonial period, which has been reflected even in the number of institutions in the state.

On the issue of insecurity facing schools in the country, Echono said the fund has been engaging with security agencies, the Ministry of Education and others to ensure a safe education for the children.

“We are doing everything possible to avoid the recurrence of last week’s incident in Kaduna. Kwara has been very useful to the country in providing institutions that train teachers at the basic level of education.

“On our end, we introduced a new intervention line last year where we try to upgrade security facilities in our beneficiary institutions. We are doing something about it and Kwara will be featured in that equation,” the TETFund boss said.