The proposed use of funds from the coffers of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has received opposition from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
In an exclusive with Tribune Online, the National President of the union, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, stated that the finances of TETFund were reserved for “critical sections” of the country’s public higher institutions.
This was a reaction to President Muhammadu Buhari’s education policy reveal, shared by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, at the World Teacher’s Day event in Abuja.
The policy would allow for a federal dipping into the account of TETFund for the payment of N50,000 and N75,000 bursary allowances to students studying education courses in colleges of education and public institutions.
In his response to the policy, Osodeke said, “TETFund was designed as an intervention funding agency to take care of critical sections of public tertiary institutions in the country and giving of the bursary has never been part of its mandates.
“So, if the government wants to pay bursary to students under whatever guise, it should do so from its own purse and not from TETfund money or better still to design another programme for that purpose.
“Government is unnecessarily bothering TETFund too much for money which supposed not to be so.
“So, we as ASUU are going to fight this matter even if it means to employ all legal means to do that.”
