By Felix Khanoba
The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust TETFund (TETFund) Arc. Sonny Echono has been conferred a fellow of the Nigerian Association for Educational Administration and Planning (NAEP).
The conferment of the award on the Benue State-born Echono comes 24 hours after he received the prestigious national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) from President Muhammadu Buhari.
At the investiture on Wednesday in Abuja, the National President of NAEP, Professor Hauwa Imam, said the award was in recognition of Echono’s track records of leadership in the education sector, quality assurance and service delivery in Nigeria.
Professor Imam said other distinguished administrators in the education sector were also awarded as fellows to encourage excellence in policy implementation.
She explained that the programme was organised to enable scholars and practitioners to fashion out new strategies for effective policy implementation.
‘’Over the years, the Nigerian education system has been plagued by problem, not because of the absence of good policies, but the implementation of the policy,’’ Prof Imam stated.
On his part, Echono, who expressed delight over the award, said the fellowship is a worthy recognition of efforts to restore a culture of planning in the general administration of the education sector.
Echono said the new teacher career path policy approved by the federal government has made it compulsory for those who aspire to be administrators of educational institutions to possess the necessary professional exposure and registration.
‘’We also believed that those are entrusted with responsibility for administering our institutions should not only have academic qualification but balso have professional knowledge and skills, and also continually develop themselves, to hone these skills, to imbibe good practices, improve accountability prudence and judicious use of resources at their disposal,” he added.
