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The Senate
committee on education has called on the government to allow the
education sector raise N500 billion bond to revitalise itself. The
committee’s new chairman, Uche Chukwumerijie (PDP Abia State), made the
appeal on Monday during the budget defence session of the education
ministry with the senate committee.

He said the federal
government recently bailed out the banking sector by the establishment
of Asset Management Company (AMCON) and that similar gestures should be
extended to the education sector which he said were in shambles.

“In my view,
dealing with the issues in our educational sector is equally a national
priority and we should allow the sector to raise a Bond of not less
than N500 billion to provide for the repositioning of the sector,” Mr
Chukwumerijie said.

He argued that
given the state of the country’s educational institutions, the goals of
achieving Vision 2020 and the need to lay a good foundation, it is
necessary to raise money for the sector “Indeed, our education sector
is not just deteriorating. It is in fact in shambles. It is a major
casualty of our decades of wrong prioritisation,” he added.

“The Education
sector, I must emphasise, requires a marshal plan,” he said. “The long
neglect of the education sector will sooner than later confront our
future with a grim of harvest. Nigeria is fast sliding into a class of
Philistines and glorified illiterates,” he added.

Insufficient funds

In the 2011 budget,
N339.481 billion was allocated to the education sector; a 25% increase
on the 2010 allocation. Of this sum, N279.314 billion will be spent on
personnel cost. N25.078 billion will be spent on overheads while
N35.088 billion will be spent on capital projects.

Further breakdown
of the budget showed that N7.248 billion is for the Federal Ministry of
Education and additional sum of N3.132 billion for capital projects.
Joint Admission Board (JAMB) got N2.228 billion while West African
Examination Council (WAEC) got N1.109 billion. Universal Basic
Education (UBE got the second largest allocation of N5.966 billion.
Those who attended the sitting however, said this was grossly
insufficient. Akingbade Agbaoye, deputy Executive Secretary of National
Universities Commission (NUC) said the NUC requested for additional N30
billion in the 2011 budget, he however lamented that money appropriated
for the institutions by the Executive have not been released. The
committee chairman, however, promised that the committee will give
adequate attention to the requests, this may lead to a possible
inflation of the proposed amount by the time it will be passed by the
entire National Assembly.

He also assured them that the amendment of the Education Trust Fund (ETF) will soon be completed.