Tinubu Maps Out N683b As 2024 Intervention Fund For Public Tertiary Schools

President Bola Tinubu has authorized N683,429,268 billion as the 2024 intervention money for public tertiary colleges in the country.

The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Sonny Echono, made this remark on Friday during the Fund’s strategic planning meeting with heads of beneficiary institutions in Abuja.

Of the total, he claims that 90.75% is set aside for direct payments, 89.4% is allocated for certain specific initiatives, and 2.27 percent is set aside for responding to new problems.

Additionally, he revealed that the total amount allotted to universities for the Year 2024 intervention cycle is N1,906,944,930.00 for polytechnic universities and N1,165,355,235.00 for each college of education.

The intervention fund is expected to go a long way in addressing the long the decades-long calls for better funding of schools in Nigeria. Lecturers in the country’s public schools have often resorted to strikes to drum home their demands which also included better pay and improved facilities for learning institutions.

In late 2022, university lecturers suspended an eight-month strike over pay, welfare, and crumbling facilities, the latest industrial dispute to hit Africa’s most populous nation.

The strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had shut down federal government-owned universities since February 14 that year despite talks with the government to find a truce.

That strike was the second longest by ASUU, known for its work stoppages. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the university teachers went on strike for nine months.

The demands of the lecturers are the same as in previous strikes — higher pay, improved welfare, increased funding, and upgraded facilities