Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, Minister of State for Education, says the Federal Government will no longer issue Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) largesse to tertiary institutions with less than 1,000 enrolled students.
FG stated that this new policy, designed to raise public resource utilisation by restructuring the funding framework, will take effect from 2026.
Speaking at the 2025 Policy Meeting in Abuja, Prof. Ahmad queried the fairness of distributing the same amount of resources to schools with low enrollment as those with much larger student populations.
The minister urged TETFund beneficiary institutions to exceed the government’s student enrollment benchmark to continue accessing funding from the agency.
Recall that the ministry has mandated federal institutions to publish key institutional data on their websites, including the student population.
The Nigerian government had, in May this year, set the minimum student enrollment benchmark at 2,000 per tertiary institution. However, it was gathered that due to pressure from institutional heads, the amount was later reduced by 50 per cent.
The move, which has sent shivers down the spine of beneficiary institutions, especially those with abysmally low student populations, has sparked concerns about their eligibility for TETFund interventions and potential funding cuts at a time when most owners have left infrastructural development to the agency.
