FG urged to increase education budget to 27%

olamide oni

December 4, 2015 10:44 AM

The Federal Government has been asked to consider increasing budget for education.

House of Rep

The Nigerian House of Representatives has urged the Federal Government to increase funding of education to at least 27 per cent of the actual capital expenditures for the next 4 years.

According to Leadership reports, the FG was also asked to review teachers’ education and incentives in the bid to attract and retain the best brains in the profession.

This plea, made yesterday, was sequel to the adoption of a motion tagged “Urgent Need to Arrest the Crisis of Basic and Secondary Education” The motion was sponsored by Hon. Muhammad Usman at plenary.

READ: House of Reps Speaker condoles with late Tor Tiv's family

The house expressed their sadness about the fact that millions of children of school age in the country have no access to basic and secondary education. Usman said, “the lack of access to basic education has placed Nigeria in the embarrassing position of having the largest number of out-of-school children in the world which is placed at 10.5m before the out break of the insurgency.”

He expressed worry that most primary and secondary schools in the country have dilapidated structures, while some hold classes in the open air and have up to 100 children per classroom.

“These levels of education are characterised by poor teacher quality and inadequate number of teachers who are poorly remunerated and motivated.

“Surveys carried out in the past 2 years show that less than 25 per cent of primary school teachers could pass the examinations they set for their primaries 4 and 6 pupils “ Usman added.

He was also of the opinion that all these issues are due to lack of funding, adding that between 2005 and 2015, the expenditure on education by the Federal Government has been less than 10 per cent.

olamide oni