FG Promises to Raise Education Budget to 25%

By Adedapo Adesanya

The federal government has promised to increase the budget for education to 25 per cent, according to the Minister of Education, Mr Tahir Mamman.

The Minister said this at the Nigeria Annual Education Conference (NAEC) in Abuja on Monday, themed Implementation of Education 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Nigeria.

He said the administration of President Bola Tinubu to improve the quality of education in the country through the right policies.

The United Nations suggested to the federal government to increase its current budgetary allocation to the education sector from seven to 20 per cent in order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 — universal, inclusive and equitable basic education for all school-age children by 2030.

For years, Nigeria’s allocation to the education sector has been below the recommended benchmark for developing nations.

In the 2023 budget, the sector got N1.79 trillion — representing 8.2 per cent of the appropriation bill — according to Mrs Zainab Ahmed, the former minister of finance, budget, and national planning.

Giving a further breakdown, the former minister said N103.29 billion was allocated to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), while transfers to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for infrastructure projects in tertiary institutions is N248.27 billion.

Mrs Ahmed added that N470 billion was allocated for tertiary education revitalisation and salary enhancement.

For context, the education sector got the second largest allocation in the budget after the defence and security sectors which account for N2.98 trillion — representing 13.4 per cent of the budget.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) recommended that member nations should earmark four to six per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 15 to 20 of public expenditure (annual budget) to fund education.

However, UNESCO said “the majority of countries have not yet reached this threshold.”

The 2023 allocation to the sector was an increase from that of last year’s budget, which gave education N923.79 billion representing 5.4 per cent of the N17.23 trillion budget.

The minister also pledged his commitment to bridge the gaps between education policy statements and its actualisation outcomes.

He noted that the country had a lot of good policies on what was required to be done in the best interest of the nation but that those policies were not bringing value to the sector.

“President Tinubu has directed the return of the 10.5 million out-of-school children to school at the expiration of his tenure.

”We still have a long way to go. We are not matching the children in the country with the desired education because our policies are not producing the values we need.

“What we need is the action on the ground and not the policy declaration. This is where I can tell you we intend to come in.

“We want to bridge the gaps between policy statements and actualisation of outcomes.

“This is to give them future training that will enable them to live their lives and make them employers of labour. Everybody deserves to live a life of dignity for the well-being of their family,” he said.

He said that the responsibility of government was to provide opportunities for Nigerians to be empowered, adding that now is the time to make the policies a reality.

He also said that basic and secondary schools must be equipped by developing appropriate skills templates for creativity and research.

“We know that society that had benefitted from education is known for nurturing of creativity and research which starts from the lower levels,” he said.

He said there was a need for implementation strategies to provide mechanisms for constant monitoring and evaluation of policies to ensure the SDG goals were achieved.

The minister expressed concern over the state of insecurity in the schools and nation at large, lamenting the recent killing of one Miss Deborah Atanda, a nursing student of Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, a few days ago.

He, however, directed the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, in concerted efforts with the security, to uncover the perpetrators of the killing.

He charged stakeholders to work with the Federal Ministry of Education and agencies as well as State Ministries of Education to identify innovative approaches for improved funding and ensuring inclusive, equitable, quality education and life-long opportunities.