By The N320,345,040, 835 figure has been authorized by President Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s (ret.) administration as the country’s 2023 intervention funding for public tertiary education institutions.
This information was provided by Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, on Wednesday in Abuja at the 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.
Each university would receive N1,154,732,133.00 during the 2023 intervention cycle, according to the head of the TETFund.
Each public Polytechnic is anticipated to get N699,344,867.00, and each college of education in the country will receive N800,862,602.
“I’m happy to inform you that Mr. President has accepted the 2023 disbursement parameters in the amount of N320,345,040, 835 overall,” he stated. Based on this, each university will get a total of N1,154,732,133.00 for the Year 2023 intervention cycle.
This consists of a direct annual distribution of N954,732,123.00 and a zonal intervention of N200,000,000.00. Similar to how each Polytechnic will receive N699,344,867.00, which is made up of N569,344,807.00 in annual direct disbursement and N130,000,000 in zonal intervention, each College of Education will receive N800,862,602.00, which is made up of N670,862,602.00 in annual direct disbursement and N130,000,000 in zonal intervention.
It is important to remember that since the Fund’s creation, this represents the greatest distribution to each beneficiary institution.
Echono went on to say that the tertiary education landscape in Nigeria has significantly improved under the Buhari administration, noting that from 2015 to the present, N1.702 trillion has been distributed as education tax collections to public universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, compared to N1.249 trillion distributed from the Fund’s inception in 1993 to the end of 2014.
The gracious consent of Mr. President for a rise in the school tax from 2.0% to 2.5% in the year 2021 provided the additional impetus, the official continued. “This exceptional success is attributable to ongoing efforts at expanding and enhancing the efficiency of collection of the Education Tax.”
Echono also encouraged Buhari to sign Budget Bill 2023, which would raise the education tax from 2.5% to 3%, as a parting favor to the field of education.
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo, also spoke and urged the recipient institutions to spend the cash wisely, noting that “the country is no longer looking for paper presentations but what one can achieve with his brain and hands.”
The audit of the 2022 intervention funds distributed to beneficiary institutions is anticipated to be made public at a later time.
