The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has said that the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy had created difficulties in the payment of foreign scholarship tuition fees and stipends.
Sonny Echono, the executive secretary, TETFund, made this known at a One-Day Stakeholders’ Engagement on Emerging Issues with the TETFund Intervention in Abuja on Wednesday.
Echono said since the funds’ allocation was barely enough to service programmes under its Tertiary Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS), the fund was considering suspending foreign scholarships while also considering an upward review of local scholarships.
The executive secretary noted that the fund recently signed several MoUs with some prestigious institutions overseas that include universities in Malaysia, India, Brazil, France and the United States with a view to boosting and enhancing the TSAS programme in the future.
Chris Maiyaki, the acting executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), called on the need to develop new strategies for funding while ensuring sensitivity to the evolving challenging dynamics through qualitative funding.