The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has announced the suspension of its foreign scholarship program for lecturers, effective January 1, 2025.
This pivotal decision, detailed in a circular dated November 25, 2024, was signed by TETFund’s Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono, and reflects a major shift in the fund’s strategy to support academic development.
Key Reasons for the Suspension
TETFund outlined two primary factors driving this decision:
- Rising Costs: The escalating expenses associated with sponsoring lecturers abroad have become unsustainable in the current economic climate.
- High Abscondment Rates: A significant number of scholars—137 lecturers—have abandoned their studies, using the scholarships as an exit route to secure better opportunities abroad. This trend has undermined the program’s intended purpose.
Echono emphasized:
“In response to the excessive cost of training in foreign institutions, coupled with the high rate of abscondment of scholars, the board of trustees of the fund has approved the suspension of the foreign component of the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) Intervention.”
The suspension aims to conserve resources and promote local training within Nigerian tertiary institutions. TETFund plans to redirect investments towards improving domestic educational capacity, enabling more academic staff to benefit from the available resources without the need for overseas training.
Echono highlighted:
“This will deepen efforts to save resources while boosting investment and local capacity in our tertiary institutions.”
Between June 2023 and July 2024, TETFund allocated approximately ₦10.8 billion to support over4,980 academic staff for master’s, doctoral, and post-doctoral programs. However, the unsustainable costs and rising abscondment rates have forced a re-evaluation of the program’s priorities.
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