The recent directive by the National Executive Council that all the governors of the 36 states in the country should declare a state of emergency in the education sector is really a welcome development. The NEC is made up of the states governors and ministers in the Economic Management Team , including the Minister of Finance, Minister of Budget and National Planning and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Coming on the heels of an embarrassing report by UNICEF which rated Nigeria as the country with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, the latest directive is not only responsive but timely as well.
Though, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recommended the allocation of between 15 to 20 per cent of national budgets to the education sector, no administration , so far in Nigeria, has ever come near 20 per cent in the budgetary allocation to education
The Deputy Representative, UNICEF Nigeria, Pernille Ironside, had raised the alarm over the growing number of out-of-school children in the country, which she put at 10.5 million, at a two-day conference in Kaduna recently .This is as stakeholders in the education sector continue to lament the implication of this development on the future growth and development of the country, especially in terms of literate and skilled work force required to move the country to the next level.
Stressing the need to ensure the success of the National Enrollment Drive Campaign which aims to address the huge number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, especially in northern Nigeria, stakeholders had called on the Federal Government to rise to the challenge and act fast in order to save the challenging
situation.
Last Wednesday’s directive by the NEC was, therefore, the beginning of the long-awaited intervention to bring back the out-of-school children into the school system while at the same time promoting adult education, reviving Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as well as Technical, Vocational Education and Training.
The Point is happy that the directive also came with an instruction that the states and local government authorities should allocate a minimum of 15 per cent of their budgets to education as a way of bringing about the much-needed transformation in the sector. While we commend the effort of the NEC for rising to the challenge at hand, we are also thrilled by the directive which also mandated the states and local governments to immediately constitute special task force to manage the funds and oversee the infrastructural overhaul of selected schools for intervention across the country.
Though, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recommended the allocation of between 15 to 20 per cent of national budgets to the education sector, no administration , so far in Nigeria, has ever come near 20 per cent in the budgetary allocation to education. In spite of the obvious challenges in the sector , the 2018 budget allocated just N102.907billion to education, representing a paltry 7 percent of the budget.
The highest allocation to the sector so far was in 2015 when the then Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, realising the importance of education in the development of any nation, allocated the sum of N392,363,784 to education out of the total N4.493trillion budget for
that year.
The result of the neglect for the sector over the years has thus brought the country to the present level as standards of our schools have dropped to an unprecedented level.
We therefore call on all the authorities concerned to regard the new directive as a wake-up call and do the needful to bring back the good old days of the country’s education system. We also plead with stakeholders in the sector not to rest on their oars in their clamour for reforms to transform the sector to our desired state. It is only then that
most Nigerians can be confident to agree with the saying that “inclusive and
quality education opens the door to development and
growth.”
