House of Assembly decries sorry state of education

The Kogi State House of Assembly standing Committee on Education, Science and Technology, has decried the sorry state of education in the state, calling on stakeholders to salvage the sector.

The chairman of the committee, Abdulkareem Kekere, made this call in Lokoja during the 2017 budget defence with the state Ministry of Education Science and Technology.

The chairman, who is also the member representing Okehi Constituency, maintained that the education sector in Kogi was in shambles and, therefore, called for a total overhauling.

The chairman said the budget would effectively address the critical areas in the sector, as the committee would do everything possible to allocate funds to those areas in line with the present administration’s new direction policy.

Kekere said in accordance with the enabling constitutional provisions, oversight functions on the appropriated funds would be vigorously pursued, as the present sixth Assembly is determined to give value to any money spent.

Responding, the Commissioner for Education, Mr Sunday Tolorunleke, said the ministry was optimistic on the budget, saying that the present administration would administer the scarce resources to uplift the citizenry.

He said: “with the vision of quality education for all, and the mission to enhance accessible and affordable education services, the 2017 proposal was developed based on the new direction blueprint.”

“The global recession and the position of the nation’s economy with all the attendant challenges were not undermined in the preparation.”

According to him, a total revenue of N807,350,000 million has been projected in the areas of education levies, examination fees, sales of fingerlings and sanitisers among others.

This represents an increase of N550 million only, representing 214% for the recurrent expenditure, which captures the overhead cost as well as the personnel cost.

“It stands at N7.97 million, which represents an increase of 27 per cent N173.5 million."

“The capital expenditure revealed that the sum of N4.92 billion has been projected for 2017, which represents an increase of 165 per cent of the approved budget of N1.72 billion,” he added.