Archbishop Francis Wale Oke, National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), has called on the Federal Government to extend Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) interventions to private universities, arguing that their contributions to Nigeria’s education sector justify their inclusion in public education funding programmes.
Oke made the appeal on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, during a press conference shortly after the fifth convocation ceremony of Precious Cornerstone University (PCU) in Ibadan, where he also called for students of private universities to benefit from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
The PFN president, who is also the university’s Chancellor, argued that private universities train Nigerian youths and contribute to national development, making their exclusion from government-backed educational interventions unfair.
He questioned why private-sector organisations, including banks and oil companies, should contribute to TETFund through taxation while privately owned universities remain excluded from its institutional interventions.
According to Oke, the fund should support both public and private institutions because graduates from both categories contribute to the country’s workforce and economic development.
He described the exclusion of private universities from TETFund interventions as discriminatory, insisting that students attending privately owned institutions are equally Nigerian citizens.
The Chancellor also maintained that extending the fund’s interventions would help private universities improve their infrastructure and strengthen their capacity to provide quality education.
His position was supported by PCU Pro-Chancellor, Prof. Dapo Asaju, who also criticised the exclusion of private institutions from TETFund and NELFUND.
Asaju argued that private universities play an important role in expanding access to higher education and reducing pressure on public universities, which face significant demand for admission.
He called for changes to the existing arrangements to allow private institutions and their students to benefit from government-backed educational support.
NELFUND currently operates within an eligibility framework that covers students in public tertiary institutions. Extending the scheme to private university students would therefore require a review of the existing policy and legal provisions.
TETFund, established under the Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act, provides supplementary funding for public tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. Its interventions cover infrastructure, research, academic staff development and instructional facilities.
The fund is financed through the tertiary education tax imposed on eligible companies operating in Nigeria.
Oke’s demand is not new. In November 2021, he called for a review of the TETFund Act to accommodate privately owned tertiary institutions, arguing that they also contribute to human capital development and national transformation.
Meanwhile, PCU graduated 148 students at its fifth convocation ceremony, bringing the institution’s cumulative number of graduates to 604.
The graduating class comprised 25 first-class graduates, 69 second-class upper graduates, 44 second-class lower graduates and 10 third-class graduates, according to a report by THISDAY on November 11, 2026.
The university also announced that the National Universities Commission had approved seven additional undergraduate programmes for the 2026/2027 academic session.
The approved programmes are Nursing Science, Public Health, Medical Laboratory Science, Community Health Science, Christian Religious Studies, Music and Performing Arts.
The approvals are expected to expand the institution’s academic offerings as it seeks to strengthen its contribution to Nigeria’s higher education and manpower development.
