The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed alarm over the potential elimination of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) under the proposed Tax Reform Bill 2024, currently before the National Assembly.

In a statement signed by ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, and made available on Tuesday, the union called on Senate President Godswill Akpabio and House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas to protect TETFund from being undermined by the proposed tax policy.

The union decried Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, which allocates only 50% of the Development Levy to TETFund in 2025 and 2026. It further stipulates that TETFund will receive 66.7% from 2027 to 2029 but will lose all funding from 2030 onwards, with the funds redirected to the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).

ASUU criticized the proposal as “alarming, dangerous, and unpatriotic,” arguing that diverting funds from TETFund to NELFUND jeopardizes decades of progress in infrastructure development, postgraduate training, and research capacity building at public tertiary institutions.

The union stated, “Replacing TETFund with NELFUND is tantamount to killing a parent to keep a newborn child alive, which is unethical and against the principle of natural justice.”

ASUU described TETFund as the backbone of Nigeria’s public tertiary education system for over 25 years and warned that scrapping it would set the nation’s education sector back by decades. Instead, the union urged the government to enhance TETFund’s sustainability and operational capacity, rather than dismantling it.

ASUU concluded, “Nigeria should be improving on the operations and sustainability of TETFund, not killing the agency.”