Nigeria’s Annual Education Conference Asks Federal Government To Prioritise Education
Princess-Ekwi Ajide Abuja
The Education sector in Nigeria got N1.79 trillion in the 2023 budget, representing only about 8.8% of the total N20.5 trillion.
This amount, however, is still less than half of the percentage recommended by the global education agency, UNESCO, for expenditure on the sector.
It is on this backdrop that the 2021, 2022 Nigeria’s Annual Education Conference, NAEC, at the end of its meeting in Abuja, called on the Federal government to give Education a priority in its yearly budgetary allocation.
The conference in its efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in Education in Nigeria, issued ten recommendations which among other things, sought equal access to quality education, ending the dichotomy between Federal and state owned tertiary institutions as regards payment of school fees, free basic and secondary schools, review of the curriculum, digital literacy among others.
Addressing the conference, the Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, promised full implementation of the recommendations noting that the conference would provide the template for the strategic roadmap that Education would follow in the coming years.
He hoped that all the discussions, observations and recommendations of the conference will be effectively implemented and called for synergy amongst stakeholders to sustain the Nigerian Education Sector.
The ten paragraph communique, read by the Deputy Director, Joint Consultative Committee on Education, Olayiwola Abosede Juwon, also touched other critical areas such as teacher education enhancement, availability of technical and strong institutional capacities, community engagement and stakeholders participation among others.
The Director, Educational Planning, Research and Development, Adeleye Adeoye, who stressed that the issue of free education has been in the front burner for ages, harped on the need to expand access to quality education.
