The administration of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) has approved a sum of N320,345,040, 835 as the 2023 intervention funds for the nation’s public tertiary education institutions.
This information was provided by Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, on Wednesday in Abuja during the Fund’s annual strategic planning meeting with all heads of beneficiary institutions.
The conference, according to Echono, was a chance to get input and assess how well its intervention lines were carrying out the agency’s purpose.
The head of the TETFund said that for the 2023 intervention cycle, each university will receive N1,154,732,133.00, each polytechnic institute N699,344,867.00, and each college of education N800,862,602.
His words: “I am pleased to inform you that Mr. President has approved the 2023 disbursement guidelines in the total sum of N320,345,040, 835. Based on this, each university shall get, for the Year 2023 intervention cycle, the total sum of N1,154,732,133.00.
“This comprises N954,732,123.00 as annual direct disbursement and N200 million as zonal intervention. Similarly, each Polytechnic shall get N699,344,867.00 comprising of N569,344,807.00 as annual direct disbursement and N130million as zonal intervention, while each College of education shall get N800,862,602 comprising of N670,862,602.00 as annual direct disbursement and N130million as zonal intervention.
“It is pertinent to note that this represents the highest disbursement to each beneficiary institution, since the inception of the Fund.”
Echono added that the state of the country’s tertiary education sector had significantly improved under Buhari’s leadership, noting that from 2015 to the present, N1.702 trillion had been distributed to public universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education as education tax collections, as opposed to N1.249 trillion from the Fund’s inception in 1993 to 2014, as a total (21 years).
“This remarkable success is due to sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of collection of the Education Tax and added impetus is the gracious approval of Mr. President for an increase in education tax from 2.0% to 2.5% in the year 2021,” he added.
Echono also encouraged Buhari to sign Budget Bill 2023, which would raise the education tax from 2.5% to 3%, as a parting favour to the field of education.
In a separate speech, David Adejo, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, advised the recipient institutions to use the intervention wisely, stating that the nation no longer values paper presentations but rather abilities of the mind and body.
