Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has suspended the overseas training of lecturers in the employ of public tertiary institutions in the country due to paucity of foreign exchange and the high rate of abscondment of beneficiaries. The suspension takes effect from January 1, 2025. The Fund has therefore advised the affected institutions to prioritize the training of their workers in the country. The memo announcing the measure was signed by the Executive Secretary, Mr Sonny Echono and dated November 25, 2024 and addressed to the heads of the beneficiary institutions of the Fund’s intervention programmes. The memo was titled “Suspension of Foreign Component of TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) Intervention.” The memo read, “In response to the current 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.
“Beneficiary institutions are accordingly advised to prioritise their training needs for implementation locally (in Nigerian institutions). It is expected that this will conserve and reduce pressure on foreign exchange rate, boost investment and local capacity in our institutions, while significantly increasing the number of beneficiaries of the intervention. The effective date for this policy is 1st January, 2025. Scholars already enrolled in foreign institutions will continue to draw down on their sponsorship up to the end of their respective programmes. To facilitate the implementation of this policy, please bring the content of this circular to the attention of your staff and kindly ensure strict compliance.” Reacting to the development in a chat with Vanguard newspaper, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, described the TSAS intervention programme as too expensive. “It is an expensive programme from the word go. When you spend N50 million to send one person abroad to study and you cannot spend N20 million to upgrade a department, who gains? Let us use the money to develop our facilities here so that we can have world class institutions that will attract foreign students and lecturers. On their own, some Nigerians go abroad for further studies and they can decide to work in our institutions. Let us develop our own facilities and institutions,” he said.
Also commenting on the issue, the National President of the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, said lack of facilities locally was making beneficiaries of the programme to feel frustrated when they come back home. “The intention of the programme initially was good, there is nothing bad in gaining foreign exposure and ideas, but some of the beneficiaries, when they come back home, feel frustrated when there are no facilities to work with. That is why some of them do opt to go back to those foreign lands. Some even fall into depression. If the facilities are lacking here and there is nothing to work with, what is the essence of their training?
“We will agree with TETFund that the money to be saved from the stoppage of the foreign training be used to provide standard facilities here to train our people. Such facilities would also be used to train our students and make them globally competitive,” he opined. Due to the scarcity of forex, the Fund has been finding it difficult to cope with the payment of allowances to the beneficiaries, who sometime have to cry out to seek succour.
TETFund suspends overseas training of lecturers, due to Japa’, Forex scarcity
