From Dauda Iliya (Borno)
Federal Government has invested over one hundred and twenty billion naira in academic staff training and development across 230 public tertiary institutions in the country.
Chairman Board of Trustees Tertiary Education Trustfund TETFund, Alhaji Kashim Imam made this known during an assessment visit to some tertiary institutions in Maiduguri.
Institutions visited by Chairman and his entourage include, University of Maiduguri, Kashim Ibrahim College of Education, Umar Ibrahim College of Education Bama and Ramat Polytechnic.
At University of Maiduguri, Alhaji Kashim Imam said over 30,000 scholars had benefitted from the training within and outside the country since inception of the programme from 2008 to date.
The TETfund Chairman also said 68,000 academic and non academic staff have participated in foreign and local conferences in the last 12 years.
He explained that the visit was to interact with management of tertiary institutions in the state on how best to improve academic training, share experiences and proffer solutions to challenges faced by benefitting institutions.
“The Federal government has made huge investment in academic staff development, and this is the first time TETfund is embarking on assessment visit to institutions that had accessed the intervention”
Alhaji Kashim Imam explained that TETfund was considering the suspension of oversea training of academic staff due to the exchange rate regime which was impacting on number of scholars being trained.
Vice Chancellor, University of Maiduguri, Professor Aliyu Shugaba remarked that a total of 238 academic staff have accessed the scholarship translating to the tune of 1.3 billion naira.
According to Professor Shugaba, in 2020 alone the University had accessed over 3 billion naira from TETfund for infrastructure and human capital development.
In all the institutions visited, the management and the academic staff lauded the Fund for the support and advocated for a national working document that would identify priority areas of intervention.