The Federal government on Friday said about N250 billion has been earmarked for the construction of hostels in tertiary institutions across the country this year.
Speaking at the soil-turning ceremony of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) hostel development intervention projects at the Lagos State University, LASU, and Yaba College of Technology, the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, said the administration of President Bola Tinubu is zealous about empowerment of youths, hence his giving the political and financial will to invest in them.
Giving the breakdown of the N250 billion to be spent in the building of new hostels, Alausa said: “We are spending N100 billion, N2 billion each to build 500 spaces of student hotels in over 50 tertiary institutions. We are also building 24 PPP hostels with a capacity of at least 1,200 to 1,500 bed spaces across 24 tertiary institutions in the country. Of which LASU is a beneficiary. A typical example of that PPP is that the federal government TETFUND will bring one billion, and the private investors will bring another three billion.
“That translates into about another 96 billion to build 24 hostels across 24 institutions. And we are also spending another one billion to deliver at least 300 bed spaces of hostels in another 24 tertiary institutions in the country. So, all in all, cumulatively, we are spending about 250 billion naira in just 2026 alone to deliver world-class, high-standard student accommodation hostels across all our various tertiary institutions in the country, both federal and state.”
Speaking on the completion of these hostels, the Hon. Minister of Education explained that: “These are projects that we are fast-tracking in a way that starts delivering comfort to the students as soon as possible. For the PPP hostels, the completion period is 24 months. For the over 200billion hostels, we have a completion period of less than 12 months.”
For the Commissioner for Tertiary Education in Lagos State, Honourable Tolani Sule, the promises of the FG to LASU, especially in the provision of uninterrupted power supply, would save the institution from spending N200million yearly on diesel and fuel.
In a related development, at Yabatech, the Rector, Dr Ibraheem Abdul, described accommodation challenge at the college as having reached a pandemic level.
“We have about 36,000 student population and we have hostel bed spaces of about 2,600. Even as we speak, we have to lock down one of the hostels having about 1,000 bed spaces for renovation. The shortfall is huge. This project is going to help us alleviate the challenge to some extent. We are thankful to President Bola Tinubu and our Honourable Minister for this gesture,” he stated.
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