Education: Stakeholders Urge Upcoming Government To Tackle Funding, Out Of School Children

Ahead of this year’s general election, parents and education experts have called upon politicians aspiring to be leaders and policymakers to prioritise the education sector in Nigeria.

In separate interviews with me, they advised the federal government to invest adequately in education and make funding of the sector a priority, while adopting aggressive measures to tackle the out of school syndrome, among other issues.

Lack of poor funding has been one of the greatest challenges facing education in Nigeria. Last year, Nigeria’s education sector was again allocated much lower than the 26 per cent of the national budget recommended by the United Nations. The federal government’s 2022 budgetary allocation to education is 5.39 per cent, which is N923.79 billion out of the total budget of N17.13 trillion.

Also, as of October 2022, almost two years later, about 20 million children were out of school in Nigeria, as reported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). This figure is a far-reaching increase from the 10.5 million recorded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2020.

Perturbed of the challenges that affect education sector in 2022, including the decision of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to stave off another strike due to refusal of the federal government to honour its agreement, parents and experts have urged politicians aspiring to be president to prioritise the issues mentioned in their agenda.

A Parent and resident of Lugbe, Abuja, Mr Amos Ugba, pointed out that without education, the country goes nowhere, since the need to boost the funding to meet up with UNESCO’s standard of at least 26 per cent.

“A country cannot grow beyond its human resources, and if there is anywhere a fund should be allocated the most, it should be in education. The next government coming to power should therefore prioritise this in order to address some of the challenges facing the sector.”

He noted that if the government sufficiently funds the sector, every youth will be in school and society will be much better for it and the issue of out of school children will be addressed.

On her part, Mrs Gloria Isaac, an Abuja based teacher said Nigeria’s education system is in a state of emergency and the country is lagging behind even the poorest countries in Africa. 

“Out of school rates among adolescents and youth of secondary school age have hardly changed in 20 years. As the out of school rate has remained constant at 28 per cent since 2010, Nigeria is among the top three countries alongside India and Pakistan with the most children and youth excluded from education.”

She further lamented that the government had moved to sue parents who refused to put their children in schools, in order to address the out of school children syndrome, but has not yet implemented the order.