TETFund earmarks N300b for training of academic staff

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFund), yesterday, disclosed that it budgeted N300 billion for the development and training of academic staff of 226 higher institutions across the country in 2021.

Chairman, Board of Trustees of (TETFund), Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, who made the disclosure in Asaba, Delta State, said the appropriation amounted to two-third of its yearly budget.

Ibrahim-Imam explained that the agency had executed over 10, 000 projects in 226 tertiary institutions across the country in the last 10 years.

Giving a breakdown of TETFund’s 2021 budget of N300 billion, he said N150 million was allocated to each university, while N120 million was earmarked for each polytechnic and college of education across the country for training and development of academic staff.

He said each university would receive N900 million for infrastructure development, while each polytechnic and college of education would get N800 million and N700 million.

So far, we are happy with the performance of TETund in the past 10 years. We have over 10,000 projects across tertiary institutions in the country. Our performance is impactful.

“In the University of Lagos alone, we have over 75 projects. No institution in the country has less than 50 projects and we hope that we will do more in 2022.

“A total of N300 billion was voted for 2021 interventions and we hope with President Muhammadu Buhari’s presentation at the education summit, the fund will receive over N500 billion in 2022,” he said.

For Delta State, Ibrahim revealed over N161 billion has been spent for the training of 1,127 academic staff in PhD and Masters degree programmes in and outside the country in the past 10 years.

He, however, lamented the depreciation of Naira to the dollar, saying the development was not helping matters and, therefore, advised the management of the institutions to train their academic staff locally instead of sending them abroad to minimise cost.