Trust is the bedrock of obedience. If you want someone to obey you, that person must trust that you are acting or have acted in his/her best interest, one way or another. As a Parent/Guardian, how would you build that trust? How would you ensure that there is no doubt in the mind of your child/ward that you care and are fully deserving of their submission to your authority?
I recently heard someone say – ‘It is not what you leave TO your children that counts, it is what you leave IN them’. A child that is not well-trained will eventually waste any legacy left behind for him/her. And so, EDUCATION, whether formal or informal, is the best legacy that a parent can ever give to their child.
An Education Trust Fund is a Trust established with the sole purpose of providing funding for education. The fund could be established by an individual or a group of persons depositing a sum of money or regular contributions into a Trust for the specified educational purpose. The party depositing the funds in the Trust is called the Settlor. The Settlor stipulates the purpose the money is to be used for and any other conditions he/she desires regarding the Trust. The party who is benefiting from the Trust is called the Beneficiary. The Beneficiary is the one whose education is being sponsored from the Education Trust Fund set up by the Settlor. The Trust is managed and administered by a third party called a Trustee. The Trustee at the onset of the Education Trust, prepares a Trust Deed which is a legal document that will spell out all the desires of the Settlor as regards the Education Trust Fund and name the Beneficiaries to the said Trust Fund.
The Trustee has several important responsibilities. It must consider the best interests of the Beneficiary while still ensuring that the wishes of the Settlor are fulfilled. Very often, A Parent/Guardian is the Settlor, while the beneficiary is usually a minor child. When formed for charitable purposes, an Education Trust Fund benefits a group of people or an educational institution such as a university and may give scholarships to less-privileged students.
At United Capital Trustees, our Education Trust product creates a platform for you to address your child’s current and future education needs. You can safeguard your child’s future against unforeseen circumstances and life contingencies by ensuring the funds for their education will always be available. Settling the Education Trust involves spelling out your educational objectives for your child in a Trust Deed and then periodically putting funds aside in a Trust portfolio towards meeting those objectives, whilst simultaneously deriving superior returns from the said funds in the Trust. As experienced Trust professionals at United Capital Trustees, we administer the Trust in the manner specified in the Trust Deed, which is the guiding document of the Trust over its life span. This Trust administration entails simulating the adequacy of the Education Trust Fund using key parameters, remitting tuition, books or other fees directly to the local or international academic institutions where your ward is schooling and managing the funds to ensure it grows in value. The funds can be remitted in Naira, Dollars or Pounds to ensure currency fluctuation risk is mitigated to a large extent in tandem with your academic institution of choice. The contribution to the Education Trust fund is flexible enough to give you the parent, the ability to choose a preferred and convenient contribution plan. The Education Trust also has an optional life insurance benefit in collaboration with our affiliate insurance company.
The best time to settle an Education Trust Fund is before your first child is born, possibly even before you get married. This allows you to comfortably begin to put funds aside without the distractions of the other responsibilities that come with starting a family. That way, you can get a head start and build a substantial portfolio before other bills begin to share from your income. A supplemental Trust Deed can be drafted when your children are eventually born so that the beneficiaries are specifically named in the said document. It is important to decide how long the Trust fund will last and what could possibly lead to it dissolving. It is also important to decide where the Funds will go if the beneficiaries never use it or if some of the funds are left over after they are done with their education. All of this will be clearly spelt out in the Trust Deed which will be drafted professionally by our team of Legal experts. The scientific simulations of the Education Trust Fund adequacy will also be carried out by our Finance experts. The parameters for the simulations will range from your estimated cashflows, to the level of education you wish your children to attain, to the time value of money considering inflation, to the estimated fluctuations in school fees, to the exchange rate risks in the option of international schooling. With our wealth of experience and pedigree, United Capital Trustees are poised to guide you every step of the way to guaranteeing your child’s education and inadvertently, obedience to your instructions!
Children are a goodly heritage and every Parent’s desire is to love and protect them. There is no better way to do this than to settle an Education Trust Fund for them through United Capital Trustees.
Gift your child an Education Trust Account this Children’s Day by visiting www.investnow.ng to download the InvestNow app via the Google Play Store or the iOS App Store.
By Buky Ikeotuonye – MD/CEO, United Capital Trustees Ltd.
Laudable content.