Varsities, polys, CoEs get N2.5bn, N1.8bn, N2bn each

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has announced the disbursement of its annual intervention funds to eligible institutions for the 2026 cycle, in line with the disbursement guidelines as approved by the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

TETFund noted that under the annual direct disbursement, 271 beneficiary institutions are expected to receive allocation as follows: universities, N2,525,932,228.02 per university; polytechnics, N1,871,059,920.53 per polytechnic and Colleges of Education N2,056,527,973.04 per College of Education.

Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, announced this at the strategic workshop with Heads of Institutions on the 2026 disbursement guidelines in Abuja, yesterday.

He explained that the total direct disbursement (90.75percent) consists of annual direct disbursement (50.00 percent) and special direct disbursement (40.75 percent). Others are designated projects (9.07 percent) and stabilisation funds (0.18 percent).

Echono said the funds are meant to strengthen critical physical infrastructure, enhance academic programmes, boost research and innovation, and drive overall transformation in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector, and also strengthen the quality and impact of research in the beneficiary institutions.

Reflecting on the year 2025 intervention cycle, the TETFund boss confirmed that the Fund recorded notable milestones and commendable progress, which include strengthened stakeholder engagements, improved policy alignment, timely implementation of intervention programmes, and sustained capacity-building initiatives across beneficiary institutions.

“Some efforts deployed to strengthen stakeholders’ engagement in the year 2025 intervention cycle were the successful convening of strategic meetings with Heads of Institutions to review the 2024 intervention cycle, and the allocation for the 2025 intervention year.

“Similarly, a strategic engagement with Heads of Institutions, Bursars and Heads of Procurement, as well as a strategic workshop for Directors of Physical Planning, Academic Planning, and ICT for TETFund beneficiary institutions were organized. Also, the Fund organized a workshop on campus security to address the escalating and increasingly complex security challenges confronting Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

“These engagements were part of efforts at ensuring collective commitment and shared experiences in delivering on our mandate, and we intend to sustain them in the year 2026.

Throughout the year, we proactively addressed critical sectoral needs through targeted interventions, including the special high-impact intervention for the rehabilitation of medical schools across the six geopolitical zones.

“There were the public-private partnership hostel development initiative, the establishment of medical simulation and technology centres, the staff support fund, the provision of electric tricycles to enhance campus transportation, and the roll out of students’ start-up and innovation grants across beneficiary institutions.

“I am pleased to inform you that many of these initiatives are sustained in the 2026 guidelines, hence I implore beneficiaries of these initiatives to expeditiously implement these programmes as we expect to roll out others in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, the Fund has introduced a new intervention line in the year 2026 annual direct intervention, which is the Nigerian Research and Education Network (Ng REN).

The Executive Secretary explained that the new intervention line was designed to improve access to global academic resources, and to integrate the Tertiary Education, Research, Applications and Services (TERAS) platform into NgREN with effect from 2026 Intervention.

“We are also expanding the special intervention projects to cover the establishment of the Centers for Robotics, Coding & AI Machine Learning, and Centre for Cybersecurity Studies in selected beneficiary institutions. Additional 12 beneficiary institutions shall benefit from the commercial farm project. These will be two universities, eight polytechnics and two colleges of education.”

He expressed optimism that with the increased investments, the year 2026 would be a year of growth, innovation, and measurable impact.