BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FUND

Being extracts culled from the TETFund Website (https://tetfundserver.com), The Tertiary Education Trust Fund  (TETFund) was  originally established as Education Trust Fund (ETF) by the Act No 7 of 1993 as amended by Act No 40 of 1998 (now repealed and replaced with Tertiary Education Trust Fund  Act 2011). It is an intervention agency which is set up to provide supplementary support to all level of public tertiary institutions with the main objective of using funding alongside project management for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of Tertiary Education in Nigeria.

Mission

• To provide focused and transformative intervention in public Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria through funding and effective project management

VISSION

• To be a world-class interventionist agency in Nigeria’s Tertiary Education

TETFUND GOALS

• To continuously improve Education Tax Revenue by ensuring that the tax is collected and made available for TETFund intervention programmes.
• To deliver appropriate and adequate intervention programmes with due regard to the sensitivities of beneficiaries and stakeholders.
• To promote cutting-edge technologies, ideas and organizational skills in education, and ensure that projects are forward-looking as well as responding to present needs.
• To ensure successful completion of intervention projects.
• To form a viable and enduring partnership between the TETFund and its stakeholders.
• To manage Education Tax in a way that is most beneficial to the Nigerian people.
• To recruit, retain, train and retrain a highly motivated workforce.
• To plan, undertake research and create reliable databank for improvement of education in Nigeria.
• To ensure accountability and transparency in all its undertakings.

CORPORATE OBJECTIVE

• Provide funding for educational facilities and infrastructural development
• Promote creative and innovative approach to educational learning and service
• Stimulate, support and enhance improvement activities in the educational foundation areas, like Teacher Education, Teaching Practice, Library Development and Special Education Programmes

The main source of income available to the Fund is the two percent (2%) of education tax paid from the assessable profit of companies that are registered in Nigeria. The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) assesses and collects the tax on behalf of the Fund.

The funds are then disbursed for the general improvement of education in federal and state tertiary educations specifically for the provision or maintenance of:

• Essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning
• Instructional materials and equipment
• Research, Book Development and Publications
• Academic Staff Training and Development and
• Any other need which, in the opinion of the Board of Trustees, is critical and essential for the improvement and maintenance of standards in the higher educational institutions.

MANAGEMENT BODY

The Fund is managed by a Board of Trustees with members drawn from the six geo-political zones of the country as well as representative of the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Inland Revenue Services. They are statutorily charged with the responsibility of the administration, management and disbursements of the funds to beneficiaries in the public tertiary educational institutions under established guidelines.

RATIO OF DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS

The enabling Act establishing the Fund prescribes the distribution of the funds in the ratio 2:1:1 respectively to Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education. The Act also provides that fairness and equality should be ensured in the distribution of the funds to the beneficiary institutions.

CATEGORIES OF INTERVENTIONS

TETFund operates on the following categories of interventions which are made available to beneficiary higher institutions based on established guidelines. These are:

a) Annual Interventions, comprising of:

i. Infrastructural and equipment/Furniture-based Intervention projects
ii. Library Intervention
iii. Academic Staff Training and Development
iv. Institution based-Research
v. Journal Publication
vi. Conference Attendance
vii. ICT Support Intervention
viii. Equipment Fabrication, and
ix. Academic Manuscript Development

b) Special Intervention; and

c) Special High Impact Intervention.

The Annual Intervention is yearly for all beneficiaries of TETFund. The Special Intervention is usually at the discretion of the Board of Trustees for which allocations are zonal-based and are done equitably by the decision of the Board as enshrined in the enabling Act.

The Special High Impact Intervention seeks to massively inject funds into selected tertiary institutions to achieve a major turnaround through Programme Upgrade and Improvement in the teaching and learning Environment; and beneficiaries are also selected based on the age of the institution per geo-political zones of Nigeria among other criteria.

(…all information above culled from the TETFund Website)

IMPACT OF TETFUND’S INTERVENTIONS TO THE POLYTECHNIC

The management, staff and students of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti are highly grateful to TETFund for the regular and consistent supports which the Fund has made available to the Polytechnic over the years. Though the institution is yet to benefit on the Special High Impact Intervention, the Polytechnic has benefitted from other categories of intervention. The remodelling of the new Polytechnic website was recently funded by TETFund, and that is why TETFund Page is created and made available to showcase all TETFund’s activities and interventions to the Polytechnic.