Tertiary education trust fund intervention programs in universities in southwest Nigeria

Abstract or Introduction

The study evaluated the availability, accessibility, utilisation and accountability process of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) intervention programmes in universities in South-West, Nigeria. Six research questions were raised and answered in line with the objectives of this study.

The university is to make optimum contributions to national development by intensifying and diversifying its programmes for the development of high level manpower within the context of the needs of the nation, making professional course contents reflect our national requirements, and making all students part of a general programme of all-round improvement in university education.

The study employed the ex-post facto survey research design. The population consisted of 15 TETFund Desk Officers, 15 Directors of Works/Physical Planning and all the 10,699 lecturers in the fifteen public Universities in South-West, Nigeria. A total sample of 2,476 respondents was selected for this study through stratified random sampling technique. Six data collection instruments were used to gather information from the respondents. The data obtained were analysed using qualitative and quantitative tools.

Findings revealed that: TETFund intervention programme has contributed immensely to the development of university education in Nigeria. Eight out of the thirteen annual TETFund intervention programmes are available to public universities in Southwest, Nigeria. It was revealed that 65.57% of the allocations were accessed by public universities from 2014 – 2020. For the period 2014 – 2020, 100.00% allocated to Special Intervention was accessed by public universities in Southwest, Nigeria. High level of utilisation was also recorded for physical infrastructure in the areas of library development (83.3%), ICT support (81.8%), equipment fabrication (71.4%), TETFund project maintenance (61.5%), and administrative buildings (50.0%). Low level of utilisation was recorded in the areas of entrepreneurship (25.0%) and teaching practice (15.0%). On the issue of accountability, the agency has a stipulated measure to regulate the release of funds to beneficiary institutions.