Stakeholders fault FG’s 7% allocation to education

Stakeholders in the Nigerian education sector have faulted the Federal Government’s allocation of 7.04 per cent to education in the 2018 budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari recently.
The allocation is far short of the 26 per cent recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for countries across the world.
UNESCO recommended the budgetary benchmark to enable nations to adequately cater for rising educational demands.
The total sum allocated to the sector by the Federal Government is N605.8 billion, with N435.1 billion as recurrent expenditure and N61.73 billion for capital expenditure. The Universal Basic Education Commission gets N109.06billion.
The allocation is lower than the 7.4 per cent the government gave the education sector in the N7.4 trillion budget for 2017.
The breakdown of the N550 billion allocated in 2017 was N398 billion for recurrent expenditure, N56 billion for capital expenditure and N95 billion to UBEC.
Although the N605 billion allocated to the sector this year is higher in naira terms than the N550 billion allocated in 2017, there is a decrease in percentage terms.
This decrease, apart from expanding the gap with respect to the UN recommendation, is also in spite of the government committing to increase spending on education, following a strike from August 13 by the Academic Staff Union of Universities that forced Nigerian universities to shut down until the strike was called off on September 18.
The university teachers were protesting poor funding of universities and the failure of government to implement an agreement it signed in 2009 with ASUU to improve facilities and enhance staff welfare at the various institutions.
The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities and the National Association of Academic Technologists commenced a nationwide strike on September 11, although it was later called off.
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics has been on an indefinite strike since Monday, November 13 over the failure of the Federal Government to pay its 2016 shortfalls and all outstanding arrears.
Apart from that commitment to provide more funding for universities, the government is also under pressure to address the menace of increased number of out-of-school-children, which according to UNICEF, totals about 10.5 million through measures that include its social intervention programme.
Vice-Chancellor, Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, Osun State, Prof. Sola Fajana, said any allocation below UNESCO minimum “is like a reckless
neglect.”
He added that nothing much could be achieved with the kind of funding the government had allocated to the education sector.
“There is a lot we need to do in education – the infrastructure decay is there, even if you pay salaries, and there are no materials to use in the classroom, it will not give us the very best,” he said.