At a workshop with heads of beneficiary institutions in Abuja on Wednesday, Sonny Echono, executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), announced that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the disbursement of N320.3 billion as intervention funds for public tertiary institutions in the country. Under the 2023 intervention cycle, each university will receive N1,154,732,133.00, while each polytechnic and college of education will get N699,344,867.00 and N800,862,602 respectively.
Echono added that this figure represents the highest disbursement to each beneficiary institution since the inception of TETFund. He also noted that the allocation to the tertiary education sector has increased significantly under Buhari's administration, with a total of N1.702 trillion disbursed to public universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education between 2015 and now, compared to N1.249 trillion disbursed from the inception of the fund in 1993 up to 2014.
Echono attributed this remarkable success to sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of the collection of the education tax, and the gracious approval of Buhari for an increase in education tax from 2.0% to 2.5% in 2021.