Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved over N683.4 billion as intervention funds for the development of the tertiary education system across the country in the year 2024
The sum to be disbursed through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETfund. represents the highest since the inception of the agency, even as it targets the N1 trillion Education tax collection in the nearest future.
The Executive Secretary, TETfund, Sonny Echono disclosed this at the Annual Strategic Planning Meeting with TETFund Beneficiary Institutions in Abuja, the nation’s capital to Colleges of Education.”
Echono called for an increase in the salaries of lecturers in Nigeria, saying that no professor in Nigeria earns up to N500,000 a month which is regrettable
He said because of “Poor remuneration, most of the good brains in the country are living for greener pastures in other countries of the world.”
The Minister of Information, Professor Tahir Mamman commended the TETfund for all of its efforts while urging the agency and others to redouble efforts due to the kind of support being received from the president.
“With the kind of support we are getting from the President there is a need to redouble our effort.”
He said since the beginning of the administration efforts were fine-tuned towards practical results with set out timelines for projects, which is helping to fast-track development in the sector.
He said the ministry is focussed on bringing all out-of-school children back to the classrooms, ensuring that issues of certificate racketeering that inundated the country in recent days are resolved as the committee has started sitting, stressing that “if there is doubt on any certificate in Nigeria, it affects all”
The Minister represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Zubairu Abdulahi said for seamless academic sessions in tertiary institutions in the country, Unions are being carried along, while encouraging them to give constructive criticism.
The Acting Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, in Nigeria, Dr. Chris Maiyaki said interventions by TETfund are coming at a time when there are clarion calls for rethinking the educational system in Nigeria, as questions are being asked such as: How can Nigeria have great minds and yet so much poverty?
He called for plans to begin to include private Universities as beneficiaries of TETfund, just as he supported the call for an increase in the salaries of lecturers in tertiary institutions, commended the agency for interventions, especially research grants while urging beneficiaries to utilize them effectively.
The Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE Idris Bugaje commended TETfund for interventions in the 73 polytechnics in the country and the allocation of funds for skill acquisition centers and workshops
He, however, called for “The alteration of the sharing formulas of TETfund so that the Polytechnics can benefit more.”
Similarly, the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education, NCCE Professor Paulinus Okwelle called for special intervention from TETfund in the areas of “people with special needs”, while commending the agency for fund allocations to the colleges of education.