From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has approved the year 2024 disbursement guidelines in the total sum of N683,429,268, 402.64, to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria through the platform of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
TETFund said the figure represents a very significant increase above last year’s intervention and every other year, since inception, attributing it to sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of collection of the education tax, and the recent increase in education tax from 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent in the year 2023.
Breakdown of the figure indicated that 90.75 per cent of the total figure was budgeted for direct disbursement to the institutions, while 8.94 per cent was budgeted for some designated special projects, in addition to a stabilization fund of 2.27 per cent reserved for emergency responses by TETFund.
Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono, who announced the disbursement at a meeting with heads of beneficiary institutions in Abuja, on Friday, confirmed that the figure was the highest disbursements to tertiary institutions.
He said that base on the approval by the President, each public University shall get, for the year 2024 intervention cycle, the sum of N1,906,944,930.00. This comprises N1,656,944,930.00, as annual direct disbursement and N250 million as zonal intervention.
Similarly, each Polytechnic shall get N1,165,355,235.00, comprising of N1,015,355,235.00, as annual direct disbursement and N150 million as zonal intervention; while each College of Education shall get N1,398,426,282.00, comprising of N1,248,426,282.00, as annual direct disbursement and N150 million as zonal intervention.
Echono disclosed that the approved new intervention lines in the annual direct disbursement include the establishment of career centres/unit, in all categories of beneficiary institutions as well as the institution-based skills development for Polytechnics.
“For the special direct disbursements, we have increased the allocation for the Special High Impact Programme (SHIP), and the number of benefitting institutions have also been increased to two per geopolitical zone per category, giving a total of 36 beneficiary institutions.
“Other areas of special direct disbursement are provision for hostels using the public/private partnership arrangement, innovation hubs, disaster recovery, security infrastructure, completion of abandoned projects and many others,” Echono added.
He also disclosed that provisions have been made in the year 2024 intervention to address the problems arising from the increase in exchange rates to scholars.
He also reiterated the determination of TETFund to deepen research, promote innovation and honing of skills in beneficiary institutions, and also encourage the discovery and development of creative talents amongst scholars and students, as a major pillar of the renewed hope agenda of the present administration.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who was represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Zubairu Abdullahi, appreciated TETFund for efforts in transforming public tertiary institutions, infrastructurally and otherwise.
He, thus appealed to the institutions to replicate the support by providing quality education and research that would bring solutions to several issues militating against the socioeconomic development in Nigeria.