The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, recently issued a stern warning to underperforming institutions, stating that failure to comply with operational guidelines and effective utilisation of allocated funds may lead to delisting as beneficiaries of the Fund’s interventions.
Echono made the declaration during a capacity-building workshop organised to strengthen institutional understanding of TETFund’s intervention guidelines and strategic priorities for the coming year.
“Institutions that fail to access, utilise, or retire funds in line with our guidelines—or underperform in key academic and operational benchmarks—risk being delisted. This is not a punitive measure but a step to safeguard the integrity and impact of our interventions,” Echono stated.
He described the workshop as more than a routine gathering, calling it a “strategic convergence” aimed at addressing recurring implementation bottlenecks, enhancing compliance, and ensuring that the benefits of TETFund’s support are amplified through efficiency and accountability.
The Executive Secretary emphasised that the training is intended to equip key institutional personnel involved in planning, implementing, and monitoring TETFund projects to improve institutional performance and development outcomes.
“Our collective goal is to ensure that these gains are not only sustained but maximised for national development,” Echono added.
Echono also unveiled strategic policy directions for 2025, particularly with regard to the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) under the Academic Staff Training and Development (AST&D) scheme.
He announced that the foreign training component of TSAS had been officially suspended, effective January 1, 2025. The decision, he explained, was part of a broader reassessment of the Fund’s training priorities to ensure greater impact, cost-effectiveness, and alignment with national capacity-building goals.
This development marks a shift in focus towards enhancing local academic development and promoting partnerships with reputable Nigerian institutions to build capacity internally, while reducing dependence on costly foreign training programmes.
Throughout his address, Echono reaffirmed TETFund’s unwavering commitment to transforming Nigeria’s tertiary education landscape, not just through funding, but through systems that ensure value-for-money, accountability, and developmental relevance.
“We are not just funders. We are strategic partners in progress. And our expectation is that institutions demonstrate the capacity, discipline, and integrity necessary to drive the change we all seek,” he concluded.
The workshop drew participation from vice-chancellors, rectors, provosts, bursars, and directors of physical planning from beneficiary institutions nationwide.