The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has said that more than N30 billion has been spent on the training of academic staff in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the Chairman, Board of Trustees of Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, on Thursday at the 3rd edition of Tax Payers Forum themed, ‘TETFUND Intervention: Catalyst for Transforming Tertiary Education in Nigeria’.
He said, “more than N30 billion was set aside for academic staff training in the various institutions across the country.
“Infrastructure has been given special attention in this regard, because of its decay and collapse across public tertiary institutions in Nigeria at the onset.
“A careful observation will reveal that the Fund has between January to December 2020 alone carried out 16,982 various infrastructure projects across beneficiary institutions.
“Considering the projects carried out since inception, based on annual allocation to institutions over the years 2011 to 2021, it is estimated that a total of over 152,838 various infrastructure projects have been carried out across various public tertiary institutions.
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“These projects include construction of lecture theatres, classrooms, hostels, offices, laboratories, road networks and fencing of institutions in different parts of the country. Tertiary institutions across the country are dotted with TETFund projects which bear the insignia of the Fund distinctly inscribed on each project.
“Additionally, we have sponsored over 10,632 lecturers in the local Ph.D. program, over 9,072 lecturers in the local master’s degree programme across the country between 2011 and year 2020.
“The Fund has also sponsored well over 4,485 lecturers to overseas institutions for Ph.D. programs and over 3,192 Master’s degree candidates also overseas, across tertiary institutions within the same period.
“The Fund has further supported 71,263 lecturers in Federal and State Colleges of Education under its teacher supervision program, bringing to a total 98,644 the number of academic staff across public tertiary institutions that have benefited from the academic staff training and development programme of the Fund.”
