Despite huge investments in education, the Federal Government has lamented the sector’s poor performance. The Bola Tinubu administration noted that the basic education sub-sector is plagued by issues, like pupils sitting on bare floors, high rate of drop-outs, increase in number of out-of-school children, poor infrastructure, dilapidated classroom buildings, inadequate learning facilities, unqualified teachers, inadequate monitoring, inequitable access and low learning outcomes.
Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, expressed his dismay in Abuja, yesterday, at the 25th quarterly meeting of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Management with executive chairmen of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB).
The development came as findings by The Guardian revealed that the Federal Government allocated N6.47 trillion to the sector in the last seven years.
In 2016, 2017 and 2018, education received 7.9 per cent, 6.1 per cent and 7.1 per cent of the respective years’ budgets. This rose to 8.4 per cent in 2019, plummeted to 6.5 per cent, 5.7 per cent and 5.4 per cent in 2020, 2021 and 2022 before soaring to 8.2 per cent in 2023.
“It is really disheartening that despite the Federal Government’s huge investment, interventions and technical support, the basic education sub-sector is still bedeviled with these unpleasant occurrences. We cannot continue to sit on the fence and allow our educational system to deteriorate. We must take the bull by the horns and delete the name of Nigeria from among the ‘Learning Poverty’ countries,” the minister said.
To checkmate the trend, Sununu urged chairmen of SUBEB to review the condition of basic education in their states by conducting needs assessment of all schools “with a renewed determination to justify Federal Government’s huge investment in your respective states”.
On his part, Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, called for new approaches to address problems confronting the basic education sub-sector.
The UBEC boss also revealed that the commission has successfully conducted the 2022 National Personnel Audit fieldwork and assessment on learning achievements.
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