Action Aid Nigeria, yesterday commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his commitment to increasing education funding by 50 per cent over the next two years and up to 100 per cent by 2025, with the objective to reach the global benchmark of 20 percent of public allocation and expenditure to education.
President Buhari had made the commitment at the just concluded Global Education Summit in London which was co-hosted by UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta.
With this, Action Aid said it was looking forward to the next steps and actions to back up the President’s commitment so as to address the numerous challenges confronting the education sector.
The statement signed by the country director, Ene Obi, and made available to newsmen, said the president’s commitment to the funding of the education sector will no doubt boost the overall quality of education in the country.
The statement reads: “Nigeria is a signatory to many international instruments on the delivery of quality education, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as such, we expect to see a directive to all relevant government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to prioritise and commence the process of incremental budgeting to actualise the commitment.
“We are particularly delighted that the commitment responds to the call for Governments to take actions to increase the SHARE of funds allocated to and spent on free, quality, inclusive public education.
“This is very critical for the transformation of the sector and will help in placing the country on the path to sustainable education for all.
“Following the trend analysis of the Federal Government Budget by Action Aid Nigeria over the years, the allocation to education has declined relatively. Whereas the size of the federal government budget has increased
“Since 2016, the allocation to education has been on the decline, although the allocation to education in the overall 2021 FGN budget increased from 5.61 per cent in 2020 to 5.68 per cent in 2021, it was lower than the 7 percent attained in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
“It is no longer news that Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, is home to the highest number of out-of-school children in the world (estimated at around 10.5 million) and evidence has shown that the Covid-19 pandemic and insecurity are increasing this number, hence the commitment of the president couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Action Aid Nigeria, therefore, calls on all arms of government to collectively push forward this commitment and ensure that necessary steps are taken to actualise the commitment.
“Finally, the government must ensure it works with relevant organisations to enable greater scrutiny of future allocations by publicly publishing education budget and expenditure”.