The latest disbursement of N320.3 billion as intervention fund for public tertiary institutions is yet another evidence of President Muhammadu Buhari’s desire to improve higher education in the country.
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) said in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke that the 2023 Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) disbursement to tertiary institutions is the highest in 30 years.
“If there is any administration that many Nigerians are not fair to, it is the President Muhammadu Buhari administration which has been accused of ignoring the education sector.
“But the latest information from TETFund has once more shown how insincere many of the critics of the administration have been in their assessment.
“We have been constantly assailed with tales of poor funding of public tertiary institutions but the facts on ground have continued to put a lie to that claim as seen in the latest TETFund approvals to the schools.
“According to the TETFund Executive Secretary, the 2023 allocation to tertiary institutions is N320 billion which represents the highest disbursement to the institutions since the Fund was created 30 years ago.
“For the avoidance of doubt, each federal university is to get N1.154 billion, the polytechnics get N699.3 million each while colleges of education are to receive N800.8 million each for 2023 alone.
“This is unprecedented and it goes without saying that there has never been a time in Nigeria’s history that public institutions of learning got this much even at the height of the various oil booms of previous administrations, ” the group added.
BMO said that public institutions of learning got more funding in the Buhari years than at any time in the nation’s history.
“We make bold to say with the benefit of publicly available information that yearly allocations on President Buhari’s watch to these schools have consistently been higher than previous years.
“The Buhari-era disbursement to public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education totalled N1.702trillion compared to N1.249trillion disbursed from the inception of the fund in 1993 to 2014.
“But that of 2023 clearly stood out, and like officials of the ministry of education we hope that beneficiary institutions would use the intervention funds judiciously”.