The Federal Government has revealed it has disbursed N3.8 billion to support stranded Nigerian scholars overseas in recent years.
Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), made this announcement on Thursday in Abuja during a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on TETFund.
Echono reported that the fund has assisted 1,500 scholars with the allocated N3.8 billion.
Addressing concerns about delays in scholarship payments, Echono explained that the recent rise in foreign exchange rates has affected many scholars in countries such as the United Kingdom and Malaysia.
These concerns have been raised with the National Assembly, the Presidential Villa, the Ministry of Education, and TETFund itself.
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“We were happy that the response was very positive and that was why we were able to secure the President’s approval and do what we called the bail out or assistance.
“We did observe that part of the challenge”, he said.
“In the past, each time we send funding for the institutions, we send money directly to the schools and it is the responsibility of the institutions to now remit to the students.
“However, for illegitimate and legitimate reasons, many of the institutions came back to us and complained that it takes a whole lot of time to process the transfers to central bank.
“But we now pay directly to the institution as part of our intervention”, he added.
Echono also revealed that before now, Nigeria was not doing well in the area of research grants.
He, however, added that efforts had been made as Nigeria had now moved from the 9th position to the 7th position in the African research grant
