As the global community marks the International Day of Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called on presidential candidates in Nigeria to prioritise investment in education as the 2023 elections draw near.
UNICEF Nigeria Representative on the International Day of Education, Cristian Munduate, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to deliver on his commitments made at the UN Secretary General’s Transforming Education Summit in September 2022 to end the global learning crisis.
The International Day of Education is not a day to celebrate Nigeria’s education as 20 million children, most of whom are girls, are out of school in Africa’s most populous country.
SDG Four: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Nigeria is the second richest country in Africa. However, the country spends less on education than all but one (Somalia) of the ten poorest countries on the continent.
In fact, according to UNICEF, 75 percent of children aged seven to 14 years cannot read a simple sentence or solve a basic math problem.
As for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), an intervening agency of the Nigerian government, the number of out-of-school children between the ages of six and 11 in the country is 10.1 million based on its 2018 National Personnel Audit (NPA) report.
‘On this International Day of Education, I join the global call to invest in people, prioritise education and urge Nigeria to deliver on the commitments made by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, at the UN Secretary General’s Transforming Education Summit in September 2022 to end the global learning crisis’, the statement read.
The federal government has committed to spend four percent of its GDP and 22.5 percent of its national budget on education by 2025 and maintain this in 2030.
Unfortunately, this is far from reality in the country as Nigeria recently budgeted its lowest, 5.39 percent, for education in the last ten years.
Meanwhile, countries like Kenya and South Africa are already spending 19 percent and 18.4 percent of GDP respectively on education.
State governments in Nigeria have the lion’s share of responsibility with respect to primary and secondary school education.
However, a review of the UBEC portal shows that between 2005 and 2021, 32 states did not access over N48 billion in UBEC funds available for improving basic education across all states.
It is evident that states are failing in the area of assessing the funding that are crucial to basic education outcomes in their various states, but the federal government has also failed to dedicate at least 15 percent of its total annual budget to education, based on UNESCO’s recommendation.
UNICEF, in the statement, promised to continue to support federal and state governments in Nigeria to reduce the number of out-of-school children by providing safe, secure and violence-free learning environments both in formal and non-formal settings.
It also promised to engage communities on the importance of education and provide cash transfers to households and schools.
The UNICEF representative further called on all presidential candidates to include investments in education as a top priority in their plans.
‘As Nigeria’s presidential elections draw near, on behalf of UNICEF and the children in Nigeria, I call on all presidential candidates to include investments in education as a top priority in their manifestos’, the statement read.
Source: UNICEF Nigeria
Photo source: UNICEF Nigeria
