Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Sunday advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to sacrifice Nigeria’s educational system in blind obedience to the policies directed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Ibadan zone of ASUU comprising the University of Ibadan, Ibadan; University of Ilorin, Ilorin; Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso; Osun State University, Osogbo; Kwara State University, Malete; and Emmanuel Alayande University of Education, Oyo) at a press conference drew the attention of the National Assembly and the federal government to the inherent dangers in the proposed abolition of TETFund and its replacement with NELFUND in the proposed Public Benefit and Taxation Bill (PBTB) of 2024.
The zonal coordinator, Professor Oyegoke Oyebamiji, argued that “TETFund, which was the brainchild of the union, had greatly helped in improving infrastructural development in Nigerian tertiary institutions, aided capacity building of members of academic staff, contributed immensely to promotion of cutting-edge researches, assisted in organising seminars, workshops and learned conferences both locally and internationally, helped in equipping scanty scientific and engineering laboratories, helped in purchasing books to stock obsolete libraries and useful in providing state-of-art e-libraries in Nigerian tertiary institutions, to mention but a few”
He stated that replacing TETFund with NELFUND was tantamount to cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face, adding that “it is retrogressive and inimical to the desirable future of the Nigerian public education system.”
ASUU noted that taking any percentage out of the Education Tax (Development Levy) to service other agencies not known to the TETFund Act 2011 was not only illegal but should not be allowed to stand, especially when successive federal and state governments have not given public education a visible priority through budgetary allocation.
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