Friday, March 29, 2024

Nigerian students decry low budgetary allocation to education

The leadership of the National Association of Nigeria Students in Osun State has decried the budgetary allocation to the education sector by the Federal and state governments in the country, saying it fell far below the recommendation by the United Nations.

The undergraduates particularly expressed concern over the Federal Government’s plan to spend a paltry six per cent of its proposed budget for 2017 on education. In a chat with The Point, the Chairman of NANS in Osun State, Mr. Miftah Saheed, lamented the dwindling fortunes of the nation’s education sector, stressing that poor budgetary allocation to education had been the major cause.

Despite federal and state governments’ much-publicised commitments to education, Saheed described as unfortunate and shocking government’s plan to spend a meagre percentage of their total budgets on education.

He said the country’s education sector had been receiving far below the 26 per cent of the national budget as recommended by the United Nations.

The students’ leader said, “It’s alarming to discover that the 2017 budget proposal that was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly is totally unfavourable to the nation’s education sector.

“Why should N448.01 billion, representing 6 percent of the total N7.30 trillion proposed budget be allocated to education?”

He further said that the development was contrary to the 26 per cent bench mark set by UNESCO on education for developing countries like Nigeria.

According to him, “the situation is not much different in the states. It was reported that in 2016, 33 states of the federation had allocated N653.53 billion (10.70 per cent) of their total budget of N6.1 trillion to education.

It’s devastating that 2017 is not different.” He added, “Recently, the Academic Staff Union of Universities went on strike to demand increase in budgetary allocation to the education sector due to the poor state of facilities in public tertiary institutions across the country, with some of the institutions defaulting in salary payment to their workers.

“Most of the federal universities in the South-West of Nigeria were shut down by workers due to decrepit facilities and poor learning environment. This must not be allowed to continue.

It’s high time our governments started allocating the bulk of the budget to education for this country to thrive.” Saheed also attributed the low ranking of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions to poor funding, saying, “No Nigerian university is ranked among the top 800 in the world or among the top 10 in Africa. It’s that bad.”

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