The President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Bishop Francis Wale Oke, wants the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to support polytechnics and private universities in Nigeria.

The respected cleric this weekend urged the federal government to review the 2011 law.

Oke, the founder and presiding bishop of Christ Life Church, is Chancellor of Precious Cornerstone University in Ibadan, Oyo State.

He spoke about the role of faith-based schools in national transformation at the first Archbishop Benson Idahosa Memorial Lecture at Benson Idahosa University, Benin.

Oke said that institutions have become major engines of economic progress, with their products playing an exceptional role in different sectors.

He mentioned Sola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi (Paystack); Babatunde Akin-Moses and Onyinye Okonji (Sycamore); Joshua Chibueze (Piggyvest), among others, as graduates of Church-owned universities.

Oke insisted that the huge investment in human and material resources by the owners created a more conducive teaching and learning environment as well as a stable academic calendar.

The bishop said this was supported by reports on accreditation exercises conducted by the National Universities Commission (NUC), recent results from the Nigerian Law School, etc.

He maintains that TETFund’s mandate to rehabilitate, restore and consolidate higher education will be partially fulfilled if it continues to focus on polytechnics and public universities.

“In the same way that private sector actors in banking, aviation, agriculture and other sectors have received different forms of support and funding, so has the education, which is a more critical sector

“The majority of investors in higher education are social entrepreneurs, whose main interest is not profit. They have, over time, developed a robust governance system that allows for greater accountability and transparency, ”he said.

Oke praised Benson Idahosa, the 3rd president of the NFP, for his foresight and investment in higher education as early as 1978, when his university became the first to seek approval from the NUC.

Last week, during Wellspring University’s speech on the financing and future of education in Nigeria, former Anambra Governor Peter Obi advised TETFund to expand its interventions to private schools.