The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund) says it has expended N3. 353 billion on the training of 762 academy staff of various tertiary institutions in Gombe within 10 years of its establishment.
According to TetFund the various training was to address the needs of the Nigerian institutions in the area of training and retraining of lecturers.
The Director in charge of Academy Staff Training Development at TetFund, Malam Muhammed Sulaiman disclosed this while speaking at an interactive season on training utilization that was organized by TetFund on Wednesday at the Gombe State University (GSU).
He explained that of the total 762 academy staff that benefited from the training in Gombe state, 116 had a foreign PhD while 52 had foreign Masters and 4 had foreign bench-work.
He said, “we have 278 local PhD, 312 local masters, given a total of 762 sponsorships at a total cost of N3. 353 billion”.
According to the Director, before the intervention records, showed that about 40 per cent of the Nigerian lecturers have PhD and Masters and that after the intervention the percentage raised to about 90 per cent.
He explained that while the intervention continues to impact the country’s education system, the major include lack of proper record keeping between the trust fund and its beneficiary institutions.
He said, “we have invested little above N161 billion in these training across Nigerian institutions and this investment has really changed the narratives because the record showed that about 30 thousand public tertiary institutions lecturers have been trained and have acquired higher degrees both locally and international.
“Also, we have been able to sponsor over 68 thousand conference attendance both here in Nigeria and outside the country, we were also able to sponsor over 79 thousand teaching practice supervision throughout the country.
“But these figures are our figures, we have established that what we have in TetFund as our records is different from what our beneficiary institutions have, hence the need to visit the institutions to harmonize and reconcile these records,” Malam Sulaiman said.
He added that the interactive season in Gombe was to harmonize, reconcile records and to interact with the beneficiaries on how to improve the TetFund’s activities going forward.
On his part, the Chairman Board of Trustees TetFund, Mr Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, revealed that the trust-fund has planned to move from the provision of infrastructure in Nigerian universities to the provision of hostel accommodation and other critical areas of need.
He said, “in the past 10 years, we have invested heavily and concentrated on the provision of infrastructure, but the board under my leadership will concentrate and focus on three critical areas.
“The first is in the area of hostel accommodation for students, we understand that hostel accommodation is barely 15 per cent across Nigerian institutions.
“Meaning, 85 per cent of all Nigerian students are not accommodated, so, we have taken up this as a challenge this year. The second area of focus will be on the provision of ICT and third will be on the power supply.
“Yes, we have impacted and I assure you that we are poise to impacting more, we will fulfil and we will meet the target that the president has set to increase the funding of education by 50 per cent within 2 years and a 100 per cent in 4 years,” the Chairman assured.
