The Chairman of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim Imam has said that N116 billion has been expended on academic staff training and development. According to him, TETFund is a special intervention project in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria. Imam disclosed this Wednesday in Maiduguri, when he paid a courtesy visit to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), Prof. Aliyu Shuagaba. While announcing UNIMIAD’s beneficiaries from the fund, he said: “In the last 12 years, a total of 238 academic staff obtained their Masters and Phd degrees in foreign and local universities.” He explained that out of 238 academic staff, 182 obtained their Phd degrees, while 54 got their Masters’ degrees during the period under review. “Under the academic staff training and development, we expended N1.314 billion on 238 scholars,” he said. On the Conference Attendance Grants to academic and non-academic staff, he told the Vice Chancellor that N147.323 million had been expended on 165 non-academic and 98 academic staff between 2010 and 2017. He added that the Colleges of Education Maiduguri and Bama also had 150 and 46 beneficiaries from the academic staff training and development. While Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri, had 331 beneficiaries at the total cost of N942.3 million. “Don’t expect TETFund to attend to all responsibilities of tertiary institutions in the country,” he warned, noting that the N300 billion earmarked for special intervention projects was to complement sourced funds of federal and state governments. While thanking Imam, Prof. Shugaba disclosed that the Kidney and Urology Centres of University Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) are to be upgraded with N750 million. According to him, after the upgrade of two centres, the hospital will perform kidney transplant. Other projects to be executed with TETFunds included the Centre forArid Zone Studies, Website, Innovative and ICT centres at the cost of N4 billion.
