The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has approved the sum of  N5 billion special intervention to the University of Lagos (UNILAG), to be captured in the 2021 budget.

TETFund has also increased the National Research Fund to N8.5 billion in 2021 from N7.5 billion.

Chairman, TETFund Board of Trustees, Kashim Imam, stated this on Thursday in Abuja, at a two-day capacity building workshop for heads of beneficiary institutions and staff of TETFund.

Mr. Imam said that the intervention granted to UNILAG was on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari, to meet its critical needs, adding that the same was also carried out in University of Abuja in 2020.

He stressed the importance of research as a prerequisite for national development, adding that no nation can develop without research.

The chairman however explained that research was a delicate balance for TETFund, as it was invisible, saying that as a politician, development was counted in terms of physical infrastructures such as roads, bridges, among others.

He further noted that the fund had to strike a balance between funding physical infrastructures and funding research.

(NAN)