TETFund Suspends Foreign Scholarships for Lecturers Over Nigeria’s FX Crisis and High Rate of Abscondment

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has announced that it will stop sponsoring foreign scholarships for lecturers in Nigerian tertiary institutions. The suspension will take effect from January 1, 2025.

The decision was detailed in a November 25, 2024, circular signed by TETFund’s Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono. He explained that the high cost of training lecturers abroad and the increasing number of scholars who absconded from their programmes led to the decision to focus on local training.

In response to the excessive cost of training in foreign institutions and the high rate of abscondment of scholars, the board of trustees has approved the suspension of the foreign component of the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) Intervention, the circular said.

The move is expected to reduce pressure on Nigeria’s foreign exchange and support local capacity building in tertiary institutions. Mr Echono said training lecturers locally would allow more academics to benefit from the program. He urged universities to prioritise local training programmes to help achieve this goal.

The TSAS intervention, introduced in 2008, funds university lecturers pursuing Master’s and Doctoral degrees. It covers tuition, living costs, and other expenses. However, in October, Mr Echono disclosed that the sharp decline in the naira’s value is making the programme too expensive to sustain. He said TETFund could no longer afford the dollar requirements for training due to exchange rate adjustments.

The money we allocated in naira cannot cover the dollar requirement for training. For those who are currently there, we now need more naira to pay for the dollar that is required for their annual fees, he noted.

Additionally, TETFund reported that 137 scholars absconded from their studies abroad to pursue other opportunities. These challenges prompted the board to suspend the programme. However, scholars already studying abroad would continue receiving support until they finish their programs. Institutions have been instructed to enforce the new policy and inform their staff about the changes.

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