Since its establishment in 2008, academic staff from public educational institutions around the country have accessed over N120 billion from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for training both within and outside Nigeria.
Kashim Imam, Chairman of the TETFund Board of Trustees, revealed this on Wednesday while leading a TETFund delegation on an assessment visit to the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID).
TETFund is investing N25 billion in academic staff training and growth, according to Mr Imam.
He went on to say that the team was at the university for a verification visit to determine the effect of the training programs by speaking with management and beneficiaries.
He said that the fund had to put a stop to funding academic workers to attend international conferences after it was discovered that some of them did not show up despite being paid.
“There are serious infractions, abuses. There are scholars sponsored who simply collected the money but failed to attend such conferences.
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“On the account of this, we are forced to suspend the programme. We also find similar infractions with regard to academic staff training,” Mr Imam disclosed.
Also speaking, the TETFund Director of Academic Staff Training Development, Mohammed Suleiman, said the fund had taken measures to ensure more accountability.
The measures include tertiary institutions providing details of scholars sponsored by the fund from 2015 to date, a status report of TETFund scholars within the period under review, financial records and transactions regarding all scholars, copies of thesis, and certificate of assumption of office.
He pointed out that at UNIMAID, 254 academic staff received N1.35 billion in TETFund-sponsored training, while 398 received N239 million in TETFund-sponsored conferences.
The TETFund delegation visited Ramat Polytechnic, Sir Kashim College of Education, and Ibrahim El-kanemi College of Education, Science, and Technology while in Maiduguri.
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