The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, shared this information during an interactive session with leaders of beneficiary institutions in Abuja, held to discuss disbursement guidelines for the 2024 intervention cycle.
Echono expressed his gratitude to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for its dedicated efforts in collecting education taxes. He revealed that the funds collected in 2023 would be allocated for the 2024 intervention projects.
Echono further noted that the 2023 education tax collection marked the highest amount received in a single year since TETFund's inception. He credited this remarkable increase in revenue to the 3% of accessible profits approved by both former and current administrations, as well as other diligently executed strategies by FIRS in partnership with TETFund.
Regarding the focus areas for the 2024 intervention program, Echono stated that TETFund has budgeted a substantial increase in annual direct disbursements, aligning with the improved tax collections.
He mentioned that 90.54 percent of the generated taxes would be allocated for direct disbursement, while 6.5 percent would be designated for specific projects, and 2.94 percent would be set aside for stabilization purposes, ensuring TETFund's ability to address emerging issues, all of which will be subject to final distribution and approvals.
“The proposed new interventions in the annual direct disbursement include the establishment of Career Centre/Unit in all categories of beneficiary institutions, as well as institution-based skills development for polytechnics to improve the employability and career prospects of students.
“For the Special Direct Disbursement, we have increased the allocation and number of beneficiary institutions for the Special High Impact Programme,” he said.
He added that SHIP would also focus on “provision of hostels using the Public Private Partnership arrangement for selected beneficiary institutions.
“We have also sustained allocations for Research including the National Research Fund Research and Innovation Fund, uptake of research findings to commercialisation, and supervision of scholars’ PhD research.
