FG approves N320b intervention for public tertiary institutions

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved N320,345,040,835 as the 2023 intervention fund for public tertiary educational institutions in the country.

Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, disclosed this in Abuja, yesterday, during the Fund’s yearly strategic planning workshop with all heads of beneficiary institutions.

Echono said the meeting was an avenue to receive feedback and evaluate the performance of its intervention lines to enhance a more robust delivery of the agency’s mandate.

His words: “I am pleased to inform you that the President has approved the 2023 disbursement guidelines in the sum of N320,345,040, 835. On the basis of this, each university shall get N1,154,732,133. This comprises N954,732,123 yearly direct disbursement and N200 million zonal intervention.

“Similarly, each polytechnic shall get N699,344,867 comprising N569,344,807 yearly direct disbursement and N130 million zonal intervention, while each college of education shall get N800,862,602 comprising N670,862,602.00 yearly direct disbursement and N130 million zonal intervention.”

According to him, this represents the highest disbursement to each beneficiary institution, since inception of the Fund.

The TETFund boss further said the fortunes of the Nigerian tertiary education sector improved significantly under Buhari’s presidency, as N1.702 trillion has been disbursed as education tax collection to public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education since 2015, compared to N1.249 trillion disbursed from the inception of the Fund in 1993 up to 2014.

“This remarkable success is due to sustained efforts at expanding and increasing efficiency of collection of the Education Tax and added impetus is the gracious approval of the President for an increase in education tax from two per cent to 2.5 per cent in 2021,” he added.

Echono also urged Buhari to, as a parting gift to the education sector, assent to the Finance Bill 2023, which provides for a further increase in education tax to three per cent

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo, urged the beneficiary institutions to use the intervention judiciously, asthe country is no longer looking for paper presentations but what one can do with his brain and hands.