President Muhammadu Buhari has approved N161 billion for the 2019 Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Intervention activities in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Dr Abdullahi Baffa, made the disclosure in Abuja on Friday at a news conference with journalists.

Baffa explained that the approval of TETFund 2018 Intervention Guidelines of N161 billion represented the education tax collection for 2017, which was a boost to the higher education institutions in the country.

He stated that the money had been allocated to eligible institutions for 2019 intervention activities in accordance with the provisions of the TETFund Act 2011.

He explained that each public university would get an allocation of N785,832,700, while each polytechnic would be given N536,703,502 from the N161 billion.

He also noted that each college of education would get N510,084,900 of the amount.

‘‘The approval of the 2018 Intervention by President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2018 heralds the commencement of the 2019 TETFund Intervention activities.

‘‘The approved N161 billion has been allocated to eligible institutions for 2019 Intervention activities in accordance with the provisions of the TETFund Act 2011.

‘‘Consequently, each public university will get an allocation of N785,832,700; each public polytechnic N536,703,502; and each college of education will get an allocation of N510,084,900 respectively,’’ he said.

Baffa added that detailed breakdown of the allocations would be released after the fund would have communicated the allocation letters to the institutions.

He, therefore, called on all institutions that are entitled to come to the Fund’s head office to collect their allocation letters from Monday, Jan. 7.

The executive secretary further said the fund would focus on providing essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning, providing support research and publication and instructional materials and equipment.

He said other area of focus was funding to support academic staff training and development, as well as funding to support the maintenance of educational standards in the institutions.

‘‘In 2018, the fund fully implemented the 2017 Revised Guidelines for accessing Intervention funds by beneficiary institutions to ease the processes of submission and approval of projects proposals for the various Intervention lines of the fund.

‘‘This contributed significantly to beneficiary institutions delivering their 2017 Intervention projects within the specified project cycles.

‘‘The internal controls introduced by the fund in 2017 resulted to high level of compliance with the guidelines for accessing funds by beneficiary institutions throughout 2018,’’ he stressed.

Baffa added that as at November 2018, the total education tax collection stood at N200, 793,193,208.54, which showed an increase of 25.47 per cent over the previous year’s collection of N154.9billion.

He explained that the growth in the education tax collection was a clear confirmation that Nigeria’s economy had recovered from avoidable recession it was earlier plunged into.

He expressed optimism that the increased collection would translate to bigger allocations to public Tertiary Education Institutions leading to more projects, scholarship and research funds for the institutions.

He thanked the President for supporting the board’s management in its activities. (NAN)