The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Dr Abdullahi Bichi Baffa said heads of some tertiary institutions in the country are diverting money meant for teaching practice programme.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at a one-day stakeholder meeting with heads of tertiary institutions, he said funds meant for teacher training programmes are being diverted by the institutions.
“The injection of the intervention is to support the supervision of trainee-teachers to become professional teachers, but in quite a number of places, heads of institutions have conceded to the pressure from unions and just taking teaching practice allowance as welfare. “Whether teaching practice is done or not the money is just shared. This is not the intention of the intervention,” he added.
Baffa said public polytechnics in the country are to receive not less than N45.6 billion under the TETFund 2016 normal intervention.
The amount will see each polytechnic receiving N691.6m as against N427 million that was disbursed for 2015 while Colleges of Education will get N671 million each.
He said the agency will no longer tolerate individuals who go around influencing allocation letters saying “We are still battling people who are running around as vendors and middlemen trying to buy allocation letters. The days anybody will bring allocation letters from beneficiary institutions are gone.”
