ETF to boost Colleges of Education with N157 Million

In line with its efforts to upgrade human and infrastructural needs of the educational sector, the Education Trust Fund (ETF) of Nigeria has disclosed plans to release the sum of N157.1 million to all colleges of education in the country this year.

A breakdown of the sum shows that in each school, N112.67 million will be used for projects including construction of libraries, laboratories, provision of furniture and instructional materials, N20 million for academic and staff training, library development N10 million, Research N5 million, while Publication of Journal gets N2 million and N7.5 million will be spent on sponsoring staff for conferences within and outside the country with academic staff getting 70 per cent and non-academic 30 per cent .

This amount is part of the N94 billion the Fund has appropriated for this year's intervention programmes in the sector, with N24 billion budgeted for special high impact intervention projects in 12 selected institutions and N70 billion for the entire three tiers of education in the public sector.

Mahmood Yakubu Executive Secretary of ETF who disclosed this in Abuja few weeks ago, at a strategic planning workshop with provosts of colleges of education, assured that plans have been put in place to ensure prompt response and process of accessing funds.

While tasking beneficiaries to ensure proper prioritisation of projects, quality and adequate utilisation of resources he urged them to “Choose reputable contractors and effectively monitor execution” stressing that they as stakeholders held the key to transforming the sector for better.

“No transformation of the educational sector will happen until you beneficiaries access all funds properly and at the right time, prioritise projects and ensure that they are executed adequately and qualitatively” Yakubu stated.

Yakubu, said committed to get better results ETF will be more emphatic in monitoring projects and in tracking down defaulters.