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The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), on Thursday said the agency had spent about N3.8 billion on 1,500 Nigerian scholars studying abroad under its academic training programme.
This according to TETFUND served as a bailout fund to cushion the effect of the current exchange rate of the Naira.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, made this disclosure during a visit to the Fund by the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education Trust Fund in Abuja.
He said the high exchange rate affected TETFUND in sponsoring scholars which according to him had resulted in the decline of the number of beneficiaries of the programme.
He said, "We now pay directly to the institutions as part of our intervention. So CBN now transfers in bulk to different institutions for those scholars.
“We have taken care of 1500 scholars with a total of N3.8 billion. We identify a cut-off point for those who will be eligible for the scholarship,” Echono said.
The TETFund boss, who commended the Honourable Miriam Onuoha-led Reps’ Committee, said, " the collection from education tax in 2020 was N257 billion, and by 2021, the Fund received a sharp decline in the tax collection of N185.5 billion.
He added that the collection rose to N328.8 billion in 2022 and N725 billion in 2023, respectively.
