Academic Staff from public institutions across the country have so far accessed over N120 billion for training, within and outside Nigeria, from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) since its inception in 2008.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETFund, Alhaji Kashim Imam, disclosed this on Wednesday when he led a delegation of the fund to the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) on an assessment visit.

Imam said for 2021 alone, the fund was investing N25 billion on academic staff training and development.

Imam said the team was in the university for a verification visit and to assess the impact of the training programmes, through interaction with management and beneficiaries.

He noted that the fund had to suspend the sponsorship of academic staff attending international conferences, when it discovered that some staff who collected money for such conferences did not attend.

“There are serious infractions, abuses. There are scholars sponsored who simply collected the money but failed to attend such conferences.

“On the account of this, we are forced to suspend the programme. We also find similar infractions with regard to academic staff training,” Imam said.

Also speaking, the TETFund Director of Academic Staff Training Development, Mallam Mohammed Suleiman, said the fund had taken measures to ensure more accountability.

The measures are that all tertiary institutions would, among other things, make available, details of all scholars sponsored by the fund from 2015 to date, a status report of all TETFund scholars within the period under review, financial records and transactions in respect of all scholars, copies of thesis and certificate of assumption of office, he explained.

He noted that at the UNIMAID, a total of 254 academic staff benefited from the fund sponsored trainings, amounting to N1.35 billion, while 398 benefitted from conferences that cost over N239 million.

Newsmen report that while in Maiduguri, the TETFund delegation also paid similar visits to Ramat Polytechnic, Sir Kashim College of Education and Ibrahim El-kanemi College of Education, Science and Technology.

TodayNG