The Federal Government said it had spent N522.2bn in the last four years on project development, academic staff training and development, library development and other high impact projects in tertiary educational institutions.

The Supervising Minister of Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike, stated this on Tuesday in Abuja in a presentation at the 20th Nigerian Economic Summit.

The summit, with the theme: ‘Transforming education through partnerships for global competitiveness’, was declared open by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Wike said the amount was spent through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

The funding, according to him, are part of strategies to bring about high performing institutions that will produce graduates, who will  be prepared to meet the needs of the society.

Of this amount, the minister said the sum of N456.559bn had been accessed, while N65.647bn had not been accessed.

Giving a breakdown of how the N522.20bn was allocated, he said N268.484bn was allocated to the universities, with N233.33bn already accessed, while the balance of N35.154bn had not been accessed.

For the polytechnics, he said N129.33bn was allocated, of which N116.99bn had been accessed, while N12.343bn was still outstanding.

For the colleges of education, Wike said that the sum of N124.38bn was allocated. Of this amount, he said N106.25bn was accessed, while the beneficiaries had yet to get N18.14bn.

In addition to the funds released through TETfund, the minister said N94.129bn had been released to all federal universities through the National University Commission for capital projects, direct teaching and laboratory cost, and teaching and research equipment.

On basic education, he said that between 2009 and 2013, the Federal Government had invested N144.67bn as matching grants to states.

Of the amount, the minister said the sum of N98.80bn had been assessed by the states, while N45.87bn was outstanding.

-Punch